I heard something about the Iraq war that really disturbed me...

I guess I'm being selfish--sharing this disturbing story--but I knew everyone here would understand my outrage.

Yes, I heard this second hand. I cannot verify that this is true. However, I have no reason to doubt that it is.

I was at a family Thanksgiving gathering on Friday for my husband's side of the family. I struck up a conversation with the wife of one of my husband's cousins. She began telling me about her time in the military and also about her brother who has been in Iraq on two tours.

We both were disgruntled about how the war is going. I asked if her brother thought the media accurately portrayed what goes on in Iraq. She said, "Absolutely not." I pressed her, "Does he think the media portrays Iraq better or worse than the reality?" She replied, "He says that the media doesn't come close to showing how awful and ugly it is."

She then went on to tell me that her brother has taken thousands of pictures--including video--of the reality. Really graphic stuff.

She then said, "There was one video that really disturbed me. A bunch of soldiers were riding in a large military vehicle, and they were pretending to shoot Iraqi children. There was a big group of Iraqi children around, and they were pointing guns at them and yelling at them--telling them that they were going to die. These children were terrified, running and screaming. The guys were laughing and continued to chase them with guns pointed."

I hate to sound like an idiot, but I seriously think I disassociated for a few seconds. I went blank. I just didn't know what to say...I was so mortified. I had no energy to hear any more. I couldn't continue the conversation. I heard her say, "I told him! That is so bad. I can't believe you guys would do that to those kids!"

I smiled and she excused herself. I think she said she was going to get something to drink.

I sat down in a chair and I thought...We were supposed to be liberating these people. The Iraqis were victims of Saddam. We are supposed to be saving them. Helping them. Our brave soldiers, marched into Baghdad, believing that they were spreading freedom. The realize now--that they are not spreading freedom.

I can only imagine what this is doing to their humanity.

What have we done?

What are we doing?

What have we done to our soldiers?

What is going on in Iraq? It appears that some of the soldiers have forgotten that the Iraqis are not the enemy--as our leaders have lied to them and propagandized them into turning against the Iraqi people.

I am terrified for our nation.

I know one incident doesn't define an entire war. However--this incident is a microcosm: Abu Graib...the torture prison recently discovered in Baghdad...the phosphorous used against civilians...Bush wanting to bomb Al Jazeera..hundreds of thousands of civilians dead...the fact that this war is based on insidious lies. Those things are the macrocosm.

This war began as a mission to help "spread freedom." The malevolence and barbarism are growing like a cancer.

We have to get out of there. Now.

It sounds like a horrific disaster. We need to get out NOW.

from a Naval Reservist - a pediatrician actually - who has just returned from - hopefully - his final tour there. He has trouble sleeping at night. He says he will never go back, no matter what.

What has been done in our name in this land whose only crime was sitting on top of a lot of oil?

We will be dealing with the fallout of this obscenity for two generations at least...

"I can only imagine what this is doing to their humanity."

That's exactly it, you see. I make no excuses for their behavior or for behavior like we saw a while back in the video of the soldier who shot the injured prisoner (violating international law, btw).

It happens ALL the time in war. That's NOT to be misinterpreted as an excuse or rationalization, just a fact.

People do have a tendency to lionize all servicemembers. And while a majority are good people, they, like other large groups, have their bad ones.

Problem is, war makes things much worse. It turns a person to their baser instincts. It can heighten and magnify any darkness already there.

I told my husband your story, he was in the Army 11 years and was in the Middle East. He didn't even blink. Found it completely unsurprising and totally plausible. He said they used to listen to certain speed metal songs while he was there, the more about killing and death, the better. To "get them in the mood" he said. They saw two Saudi women beheaded because they accidentally saw a few soldiers taking a sponge bath and some of the soldiers with him who saw the beheadings were like "FUCK YEAH! THAT ROCKED!" He said they talked about the blood spurting in graphic detail for days. How "cool" it was. It sounds awful to us, but he said it's like being in a different world, a kind of earthly hell where nothing's right anymore.

War is disgusting. What it does to the human spirit is even worse.

I always appreciate your thoughts and I was glad to see that you responded.

Like you said, war does things to the human spirit that are very damaging. What these soldiers have to do is very difficult. They see atrocities and they have to make painful decisions. War IS hell, right?

However--This war is so corrupt--practically purposeless. I wonder if our nation, or these soldiers--will ever recover. In WW2 there was a clear purpose. We knew who we were fighting. There were specific goals and directives that made sense.

Iraq makes no sense at all. The brave men and women who serve in Iraq are honorable. However, this war is not. These soldiers have to rationalize and remain in deep denial about what they are doing--and what their government has done to them.

These soldiers were sent to Iraq to spread freedom--or so they were told. Slowly, our soldiers have become the enemy of the Iraqi people--we've killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and make no apologies for using chemical weapons on them. They do not see the Iraqis as people anymore. They see them as potential insurgents.

A shift happened. However, the reality is that we created this entire mess. These innocent Iraqi civilians did want freedom. The problem is--we didn't give it to them. We failed them and now we're killing them.

The soldiers are doing the dirty work for this Administration.

Thanks again for your thoughts Bouncy. I guess the incident with the soldiers scaring the children is "normal" in war. I just wish this war wasn't such a corrupt, discombobulated and shameful playground for the PNAC players.

Even the soldiers and airmen and Marines and seamen who saw (and did) some nasty stuff in WWII came home knowing that they were fighting for a real purpose, a real cause. And there was a very tangible outcome.

So even though they still had to deal with what war did to their psyche, they had that.

The veterans of this war, unless they are highly accomplished at keeping themselves very deluded and insulated, will not even have that.

They'll have all the stuff you normally have to deal with post-war and they'll have a horrible emptiness.

Like the guys who came home from Vietnam.

:-(

bad for them all, our military and their civilians.

I think how hard it is to be in a place where you can't be sure who your enemy is, what corner you go around that might be your last. I can see that under those circumstances a kid could panic and shoot to easily, fearing it is killed or be killed.

But the story you heard A bunch of soldiers were riding in a large military vehicle, and they were pretending to shoot Iraqi children. There was a big group of Iraqi children around, and they were pointing guns at them and yelling at them--telling them that they were going to die. These children were terrified, running and screaming. The guys were laughing and continued to chase them with guns pointed. doesn't have any justification.
This isn't not knowing who the enemy is, it is just making enemies. It must be horrible having your kids growing up in a war zone, but having them intentionally terrorized by those who came to "liberate" them would turn this momma into a raging beast.

It's for no damn reason but their stress relief or whatever it is. So glad they could laugh.

Will they think of it later when they hold their old children? Will the terrorized faces of kids they were doing that to come back to them? Is it OK if you don't actually shoot them? Does that just make it teasing? Would they laugh if a visitor did it to their kids?

Kids just shouldn't be included in this

Read this e-mail that is sent round by the War Patriots:

One of my dear sons serves in the military. I'm a very proud Mom. He is still stateside here in California. He called me yesterday to let me know how warm and welcoming people were to him and his troops everywhere he goes. Telling me how people shake their hands, and thank them for being willing to serve and fight, for not only our own freedoms, but so that others may have them also.

But he also told me about an incident in the grocery store where he stopped yesterday, on his way home from the base. He said that ahead of several people in front of him stood a woman dressed in a burkha. He said when she got to the cashier she loudly remarked about the U.S. flag lapel pin the cashier wore on her smock.

The cashier reached up and touched the pin, and said, "Yes, I always wear it."

The woman in the burkha then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombing her countrymen, explaining that she was an Iraqi.

A gentleman standing behind my son stepped forward, putting his arm around my son's shoulders, and nodding towards my son, said in a calm and gentle voice to the Iraqi woman, "Lady, hundreds of thousands of men and women like this young man have fought and died so that you could stand here, in MY country and accuse a checkout cashier of bombing your Countrymen. It is my belief that, had you been this outspoken in YOUR OWN country, we wouldn't need to be there today. But, hey! if you have now learned how to speak out so loudly and clearly, I'll gladly pay your way back to Iraq so you can straighten out the mess you are obviously here to avoid."

Everyone in line, and within hearing distance, cheered the older Gentleman, coming forward as they reached for their wallets. The woman in the burkha left the store in silence.

I am, like at least some that were in the store, outraged! But it also warmed my heart to know that we as Americans are speaking out, calmly and succinctly (finally) to those that enjoy the freedoms here in the US.

Hooray for Ann Rea's son, hooray for that checker, hooray for the gentleman in the store for his actions, hooray for Ann Rea for sharing this with all of us.

God Bless America and Our Troops!

THe e-mail is false (see http://www.snopes.com/rumors/lapelpin.asp) but it underscores teh fact that we subconsciously see the Iraqis as the enemy, not the oppressed.

And when freepers are drinking or being honest, they admit that, too, with statements like "nuke it into shards of glass," etc.

Also with calling them "ragheads" "towelheads" and worse.

I'm not saying they are quiet but generally unless they really have to react that way they tend to be quiet especially around men in public. I don't know of any Arab or Muslim that would wear something that is clearly showing that they are, while saying anything like that in that kind of setting.

for the past four years our government leaders have been telling us how less than human our enemies are and how they are worse than animals and border on psychopaths.

I'd suggest reading Chris Hedges' "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

He goes into how "we" dehumanize our foe to make it easier to kill them.

And when we dehumanize our "foe" we dehumanize ourselves. It's inevitable.

We have to bury the best parts of ourselves--in order to harm another person.

If you bury those parts over and over again--pretty soon, those parts die.

not the horrific sadistic moments...but the cataloging of it via video and digital images. My brother (thank God) is home from his tour, but before he left he tried to show us some videos he'd been given by others in training-- people who'd been over for a year already. He's NG and didn't go in until November 04. We couldn't look, but still heard it as others in the family watched.

I could tell that he was watching these almost obsessively to "steel his nerves"-- to build up his readiness to kill (especially the Nick Berg beheading which he watched many times). Look, this is my kid brother and the damage was begun before he crossed any oceans.

But the fact that the world is now full of amatuer videos and pictures...that's new, I think. I had uncles in Viet Nam and by FIL in Korea, but most of their pictures were from R&R-- not the way it is now. These images/videos are going to part of our culture, floating around, biting us in the ass for years to come.

I HATE imagining what's on them. The sounds were bad enough. I also hate to think that the men/women we sent, like my brother whom I love dearly, will not only sit up late at night, alone, thinking over the horrors-- they'll likely be watching them...over and over and over.

This group of soldiers will not heal easily and we best be ready for that.

peace

Even in my time in you had a few bad apples, I can name a few instances from my own experiences right off hand. I can't even begin to imagine with the relaxing of standards on recruits now what kind are slipping through and getting that good ole training then being sent to Iraq.

warriors may not have been so young. We have to remember that the ones defending this country may be the most able-bodied but their cognitive development is not yet complete in some cases. To think that there are 18-25 year-old "kids" out there with the responsibility of not only surviving but insuring the survival of others and minimizing the survival of certain other groups of humans.

I take nothing away from the warrior regardless of my disdain for the stories that come wafting over from that stinky war. I have never been there. I have never been threatened in any way. I have never been charged with such a brutal task so I have no place in judging how said task is performed. But I do agree that a destruction of humanity on so many levels does evoke a cry for its end. We are killing our own. Some come back as lifeless corpses, others come back as the living shell of what they once were. There are so many losses that will never be counted.

...about hearing that these soldiers were terrifying Iraqi children.

I don't judge the soldiers. I imagine this soldier with the video is a bright, courageous patriot.

However, a very malevolent administration concocted and is running this war.

They are using these brave soldiers--as if they are expendable insects. They have no regard for their humanity.

To be sent into Iraq--told that you are liberating people--and then to end up maliciously terrorizing an Iraqi child at gun point. Wow.

The process of that transformation--from liberator to enemy--must rip the soul from a person.

I don't blame the soldiers at all. I blame this sick administration.

They know this is happening to the soldiers and they just don't care.

As you said, "There are so many losses that will never be counted."

I only hope that the soldiers will bring home their pictures and video--and share them with the world--so we can end this dark chapter in our country's history as soon as possible.

and our constitution does not allow for the starting of a war based on a mission of spreading freedom...our constitution only allows for war ..if we are attacked..or if it is an imminent threat with no time for delay..article 1 section 10
this war was sold to the american people as a war of self defence...from 9/11 and the phoney assed lie about a connection of saddam and alqueada/bin laden.....and a nuclear attack...ie: the niger documents ..that many of us knew were nothing but bullshit if people cared to look for any truth...and powell lying to the u.n. and the American people and the world using phoney assed plagerized 12 yr old college guys disertation paper..that powell passed off as U.S. intelligence ...and he lied and said we faced an imminent threat without saying those words..he infered it..

the freedom shit came when these bastards knew we would find no wmd!!

this war was not about freeing iraq..

far from it.

fly

Well, that's the shit coming from Pelosi, Kerry, Biden and so on.

This is a crime, not only will it never be a success, but i do not our government to even try to make it a success. Imperial war should never be a success.

That is why our demand should be strong and unequivocal, get the hell out of Iraq Now.

Cut and Run!

We all know that "I support the troops" is used by those in power as code for "I support the mission that the troops have been sent to accomplish" -- and, of course, I don't support the mission.

Even more than that: The job of a soldier is to kill. To put young men and women into the mindset that will allow them to kill other human beings, their commanders must stir up hatred (japs, gooks, ragheads) and allow 'a certain amount' of brutality (rapes, beatings, torture).

The actions of US soldiers - at least those since WWII - have hurt people around the world and put us all in more danger.

I have family members who served in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War.

I understand that many young men and women joined because they wanted to serve their country, and many joined because they needed a decent job and hope of an education. Many join because they want to kill - kill for revenge, kill for thrills. Bootcamp is all about exciting soldiers into a "kill, kill, kill" frenzy.

The military, post-WWII, has dramatically improved their training procedures so that soldiers will kill virtually anyone who might be enemy. Today's soldiers don't 'waste opportunities' to hit a soft target the way that WWII -and earlier- soldiers did.

The job of a soldier is to kill. I do not support that job, I do not support the people who do jobs in the military that allow others to go do the killing. I do not support the jobs that the troops do - not just this mission, any mission.

I honor the ideals of people who joined to do the right thing. I honor the desire of people who joined the military to have a decent job, to get an education, to travel around the world. These things I honor. There are other ways to do these things than by joining the military.

I do not honor the 'job' they did. I will not honor brutality and killing.

I am anti-military organization, anti-military mission, anti-military worship. I will not engage in verbal or other attacks on soldiers, but I will speak my peace: Soldiering -in virtually all cases- is immoral.

Mitasuke Oyasin.

I'm not a "war supporter". No one in their right mind could be. I am however, a veteran. I've seen good and bad. I've participated in "working parties" overseas on liberty where we painted orphanages, built homes, and generally helped the local community when my ship, the USS America (which now rests at the bottom of the ocean) ported.

I have two nephews recently returned from Iraq. One a GI, the other a Marine. Neither of them tell stories of mistreatment of Iraqis. Both of them are very close to me and each has his own heartwarming stories of how he was treated, and how he and his fellow servicemen were received. Neither talks of brutality. The GI even talks about being invited to one family's functions ie. birthdays, weddings and holiday celebrations.

I'd like to see our boys and girls come home as much as anyone else. But I'm of a different mind about how to bring that about.

From day one, I've said to anyone who would listen that what we should be doing is flying cargo planes over the country, dropping more food than they could possibly eat. If they have full bellies, and know that tomorrow brings the same bounty that today did, they'll start to resent the insurgents and point them out, nay, fight them on their own.

Full bellies have a value that you can never exceed.

its completely insane to think Iraqis will start butchering their friends, family, and countrymen because we drop some fucking Jello pudding pops on them.

If you noticed, they're butchering the people who collaborate with the would-be jello-droppers.

"each has his own heartwarming stories of how he was treated, and how he and his fellow servicemen were received. Neither talks of brutality. The GI even talks about being invited to one family's functions ie. birthdays, weddings and holiday celebrations."

yeah, and I bet he has the flowers to prove it. That's why Iraq is so safe, a soldier can't even browse some DVDs without getting shot point blank in the back of the head. Don't try to pull this nonsense on us - maybe it was true for one or two weeks in 2003 in certain areas, but its not the reality in 2005.

Hey let me tell you a little secret dude......IT AIN'T ABOUT MOTHERFUCKING FOOD! Is this the new RW talking point? FOOD? :wtf:

"If they have full bellies, and know that tomorrow brings the same bounty that today did" This sounds like you are talking about goddamn dogs not people. GO AWAY! You stink.

What is sad is the troops now consciously must understand they are being used, have been betrayed and are pawns of this Administration and even Intelligence and other governing agencies because they cannot leave, they cannot quit and they are being killed every day, and what's worse is to them, no one seems to care.

They have no choice but to be used by this Administration and those in government agencies who are profitting by this occupation.

Such a betrayal by our own government has now inflamed a chain reaction within our troops and those existing in the Iraqi hell. It seems a tragic however predictable psychotic reaction by the troops. It is one of course that never had to occur, if it werent for the greed and malevolence and total disregard by many abusing their power in Washington. That the troops lives have been so devalued by our own government, they in turn devalue and in an act of what truly is insanity play target practice off of the children.

This is why it is so dangerous to treat people with such cruelty. Because like you said so eloquently, it is like a malignant cancer, and it spreads, just like conversely, if you relay to others they are important and valuable, they will in turn learn to and WANT to treat others as such.

It is the law of cause and effect. This is yet one more symptom of the cause and effect occuring from this Administration.

(and others around the world, but not all, eg. not in France, depending on local laws) without your internet identity (IP details) being in any way recorded.

This war is creating sadists, if not outright sociopaths. And sooner or later these twisted soldiers will return to the US. Will they unlearn the dangerous behavioral patterns they've learned and utilized with such zeal in Iraq, or will they find they've become hopelessly addicted to them? :scared:

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m17469&date=05-nov-2005_03:0
"Some polls have asked Iraqis specifically about the presence of U.S. troops, and guess what: they want us to leave. A February poll by the U.S. military, cited by the Brookings Institution, found that 71 percent of Iraqis "oppose the presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq." This poll was taken only in urban areas, but others have found much the same sentiment. According to a January 2005 poll by Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International, 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiite Arabs favor the withdrawal of U.S. troops either immediately or after an elected government is in place."
and this one is a from the British Ministry of Defense
link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/23/wirq23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/23/ixportaltop.html
"Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;
• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;
• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;
• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;
• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;
• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces."
_______________
Here another link regarding polls of Iraq opinion:
http://www.comw.org/pda/0501br17append.html

many months ago that cited examples of soldiers hitting kids with bottles etc., as they drove by them. I'm not sure if I can find it now.

edit: that is Newsday not Newsweek

us (my husband and me) that in basic, the attack dummies had keffiyehs on them. So instead of the attack dummy being some nameless, faceless "enemy", they were distinctly Arab. Pointedly Arab. Intentionally Arab.

Sickening, init?


We need to be out of Iraq - yesterday.