This is a continuation of the underside of war now being revealed by Wikileaks, and of the training which is systematic and routine in the Army. It is intended to make you do things that the ordinary person, still sensitized to other human beings, could not do. Specialist Corcoles told the reporters, when the IEDs hit and it came time to shoot "every motherfucker on the street" as the Commander had ordered, he purposely turned his gun away from people. "You don't even know if somebody's shooting at you. It's just insanity to just start shooting people," he said.
What these soldiers are describing, tit-for-tat retaliation against civilians, is a clear war crime which has been successfully prosecuted after WWII in the case of German SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler. In 1944 Kappler ordered the mass execution of civilians in the ratio of 10 to 1 for every German soldier killed in a March 1944 hidden bomb attack by Italian partisans. The executions took place in the caves of Ardeatine in Italy. You may have seen a movie about it starring Richard Burton.
This is different from the usual atrocities we hear about in Iraq as it was ordered at a high level by a battalion commander as a "Standard Operating Procedure" in a cold-blooded and deliberate manner, and the order was carried out many times. Attempts to get the attention of Congress on this have so far fallen on deaf ears.
After the war Kappler stood trial for war crimes and was sentenced to life in prison. This dishonors the Armed Services and our servicemen and women, who are bound to abide by behavior specified in the US Military Code of Justice, and not start to resemble Saddam Hussein, who ordered the killing of civilian Kurds in retaliation for attacks on his troops.
When gang members here in the States shoot people from their cars, we call them [Drive by's]. If they get caught they usually get life in prison for killing those people.
ReplyDeleteI guess it is different when it is called [A global war on terror]?
The analogy holds good for me, RZ. I have seen documentaries here by embedded film-makers where they have filmed this stuff up front. In one, a taxi driver was killed by the US soldiers in Baghdad(2007). The platoon commander said on looking at his corpse in the full knowledge of who had killed him,' a ricochet'. I have no doubt that this is what went into his report and nobody gave a shit apart from the man's family and friends.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nhqs.nato.int/ntmi/articles/2010/index_01_%2010.html
ReplyDeleteEnjoy
Good link. A grotesquerie from Nato as expected.
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