Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers

Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers

By Robert Parry

Created Feb 13 2008 - 9:22am

By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan - and by

winking at torture and indiscriminate killings - George W. Bush is degrading

the reputation of the U.S. military, turning enlisted soldiers and

intelligence officers into murderers and sadists.

For instance, on Feb. 10 at Camp Liberty in Iraq, Army Ranger Sgt. Evan Vela

was sentenced by a U.S. military court to 10 years in prison for executing

an unarmed Iraqi detainee who - along with his son - had stumbled into a

U.S. sniper position last year.

After letting the 17-year-old son go, Vela's squad leader, Staff Sgt.

Michael Hensley ordered Vela to use a 9-millimeter pistol to shoot the

father, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, in the head, an order that Vela

carried out.

"It was murder, plain and simple," military prosecutor, Major Charles

Kuhfahl, told the court.

Janabi's son, Mustafa, was allowed to make a statement, explaining how his

father's death had devastated the family and how one of his four younger

brothers now avoids their home because he can't stand the sight of his

father's empty room.

"Please don't forget about us," Mustafa told the court.

But Vela's guilty verdict was a rare case of holding a U.S. soldier

accountable in the killing or abusing of an Iraqi. Among the infrequent

cases that have been brought, most end in acquittals or convictions only on

minor charges.

Last November, for example, another military jury acquitted Hensley in the

same murder of Janabi as well as in the killing of two other Iraqi men south

of Baghdad in the early days of Bush's troop "surge." That jury ruled that

Hensley was following the approved "rules of engagement," though it did

convict him of planting an AK-47 on one victim.

Some of Vela's military comrades complained that it was unfair to single any

of them out for punishment because these killings are so common in Iraq.

Vela's former platoon commander, Sgt. First Class Steven Kipling, said that

if all U.S. combat soldiers in Iraq were subjected to the same scrutiny

applied to Vela, "we would have thousands" of cases. [NYT, Feb. 11, 2008

[1]]

Indeed, the evidence does suggest that the handful of homicide cases from

Iraq and Afghanistan that reach military trial represent only a small

fraction of the unprovoked killings of locals at the hands of U.S. soldiers.

Press Attention

The murder and abuse cases that do result in trials often stem from

incidents that get news media attention, like the mass killing of two dozen

Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, which Time magazine exposed.

Even more memorable was the case of the sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi

detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, mistreatment that was documented with

photographs that reached the U.S. news media in 2004.

President Bush, who then was seeking reelection, joined in denouncing the

low-ranking soldiers who had dressed Iraqi men up in women's underwear or

made them pose naked on leashes or in fake sexual positions.

Bush said he "shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the

way they were treated." Other senior administration officials called the Abu

Ghraib guards - mostly poorly trained reservists - a "few bad apples."

Amid the furor, some Abu Ghraib guards claimed they were simply following

guidance from intelligence interrogators on techniques to "soften up"

detainees. But the Bush administration stuck to its story that the guards

were an out-of-control night shift.

Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence officer

at Abu Ghraib to support the guards' claim that the prisoner abuse was part

of the "alternative interrogation techniques" that had made their way from

Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

Provance, however, was punished for his candor and pushed out of the U.S.

military. The Bush administration went ahead with plans to pin the blame on

the MPs. [see Consortiumnews.com's "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib [2]."]

Only after Election 2004 did evidence surface revealing that the sexual

abuse of the Abu Ghraib prisoners did fit with the broader policy - approved

by President Bush and other senior administration officials - to break down

prisoners for interrogation.

For instance, alleged 9/11 plotter Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was sent to

Guantanamo in 2002, was subjected to treatment similar to what later

occurred at Abu Ghraib. Qahtani was forced to wear a bra, had a thong placed

on his head, was paraded naked in front of women and was led around on a

leash like a dog, military investigators reported in 2005 [3].

Nevertheless, at Abu Ghraib, only the guards got serious punishment.

Eventually, 11 enlisted soldiers were convicted in courts martial.

Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the harshest sentence - 10 years in

prison - while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was

photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee's penis,

was sentenced to three years in prison. Their superior officers either were

cleared of wrongdoing or received mild reprimands.

Bush continued to treat the Abu Ghraib scandal like a freak incident that

the media had blown out of proportion. At a press conference on May 25,

2006, he complained, "We've been paying for that for a long period of time."

Into the Gutter

Never has Bush acknowledged that the abusive treatment of detainees - or the

killing of unarmed Iraqis and Afghanis - are a natural result of his

aggressive war strategies, nor that he is the one primarily responsible for

dragging the worldwide reputation of the U.S. military and intelligence

services into the gutter.

In the "war on terror," Bush has asserted unlimited presidential authority

that he claims lets him kill, imprison, spy on and torture anyone anywhere

in the world, U.S. citizens and foreigners alike. [see Consortiumnews.com's

"Bush 'Apex' of Unlimited Power [4]" or the book, Neck Deep [5].]

A former senior administration official told the Washington Post in 2004

that Bush "felt very keenly that his primary responsibility was to do

everything within his power to keep the country safe, and he was not

concerned with appearances or politics or hiding behind lower-level

officials." [Washington Post, June 9, 2004]

Bush, however, has hid behind lower-level people, especially the soldiers on

the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have faced multiple

assignments to the war zones with relatively brief periods of home leave.

As one member of Sgt. Vela's sniper team, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, said: "It's a

terrible war out there. And you have to make tough decisions. This war

doesn't

provide that luxury to be perfect."

In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Sgt. Hensley, who gave Vela

the order to execute the Iraqi detainee Janabi, complained that he [Hensley]

should not have even faced a court martial because he was following guidance

from two superior officers who wanted him to boost the unit's kill count.

"Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist," Hensley wrote. "We

were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys did not

die." [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007 [6]]

In another incident near the town of Iskandariya, Iraq, on April 27, 2007,

Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. received an order from Sgt. Hensley to

kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of

being an insurgent posing as a farmer.

Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted because the military jury accepted

defense arguments that the killing was within the rules of engagement.

(Sandoval was convicted of a lesser charge of planting a coil of copper wire

on a slain Iraqi, and was sentenced to five months in prison.)

The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon's

Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop

"bait" - such as electrical cords and ammunition - and then shoot Iraqis who

pick up the items. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007 [7]]

Afghani Shot

A similar case of authorized murder of an insurgent suspect surfaced at a

military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September 2007.

Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani

who was a suspected leader of an insurgent group.

Special Forces Capt. Dave Staffel and Sgt. Troy Anderson were leading a team

of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where the suspected insurgent

leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man believed to be Nawab

Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the village of Hasan Kheyl.

While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might be

wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and the

Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined Joint

Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as "the kill-or-capture

list."

Concluding that the man was Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel gave the order to

shoot, and Anderson - from a distance of about 100 yards away - fired a

bullet through the man's head, killing him instantly.

The soldiers viewed the killing as "a textbook example of a classified

mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement," the

International Herald Tribune reported. "The men said such rules allowed them

to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist

cell leader, once they positively identified him."

Staffel's civilian lawyer Mark Waple said the Army's Criminal Investigation

Command concluded in April that the shooting was "justifiable homicide," but

a two-star general in Afghanistan instigated a murder charge against the two

men. That case, however, foundered over accusations that the charge was

improperly filed. [iHT, Sept. 17, 2007 [8]]

According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, the earlier Army

investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been operating

under rules of engagement that empowered them to kill individuals who have

been designated "enemy combatants," even if the targets were unarmed and

presented no visible threat.

In late September 2007, a U.S. military judge dismissed all charges [9]

against the two soldiers, ruling it was conceivable that the detained

Afghani was wearing a suicide explosive belt, though there was no evidence

that he was.

Loose Rules

The U.S. counterinsurgency and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

also have been augmented by heavily armed mercenaries, such as the

Blackwater "security contractors" who operate outside the law and were

accused by Iraqi authorities of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting

incident on Sept. 16, 2007.

Though most media criticism has focused on trigger-happy Blackwater

"security contractors," Bush's military strategy has employed its own

indiscriminate firepower - from the loose rules of engagement for U.S.

troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to

missiles launched from Predator drones.

For instance, the U.S. military acknowledged on Oct. 23, 2007, that an

American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after

someone allegedly shot at the helicopter as it flew over the village of

Mukaisheefa, north of Baghdad.

Iraqi police and witnesses said 16 people died, apparently as some rushed to

help a wounded man, the New York Times reported. The helicopter gunners

presumed the wounded man to be an insurgent and thus opened fire on the

locals who came to his aid, according to witnesses.

"The locals went to check if he was dead and gathered around him," said

Mohanad Hamid Muhsin, a 14-year-old who was shot in the leg. "But the

helicopter opened fire again and killed some of the locals and wounded

others."

When Iraqis carried the wounded into houses to administer first aid, the

helicopter fired on the houses, killing and wounding more people, said

Muhsin, who added that the dead included two of his brothers and a sister.

A local police official said the 16 dead included six women and three

children, while 14 other Iraqis were wounded.

The incident followed on the heels of an Oct. 21 gun battle in which 49

people died when U.S. forces attacked alleged Shiite militiamen in Sadr

City, a crowded slum in eastern Baghdad. Local authorities said the dead

included innocent bystanders. [NYT, Oct. 24, 2007 [10]]

Another account of the Oct. 23 incident in the Los Angeles Times quoted

residents saying the men who were killed were farmers irrigating their

fields in the pre-daylight hours.

Abdul Wahab Ahmed, a neighbor, said the U.S. attack also involved jets that

conducted two bombing runs. The dead included two toddlers and four

teenagers, he said. [Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24, 2007 [11]]

The U.S. military said one of those killed in the Oct. 23 attack was "a

known member of an I.E.D. cell," referring to improvised explosive devices

that Iraqi insurgents have made their weapon of choice in fighting the U.S.

occupation.

The American statement added that four other "military-age males" were

killed along with five women and one child. U.S. military spokesmen often

justify killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by noting that the dead are

military-age males (or MAMs), slain in the vicinity of a firefight.

Vietnam Echo

The shoot-to-kill strategy toward MAMs has a resonance back to the Vietnam

War when U.S. helicopter-borne troops sometimes would spot a MAM working in

a rice paddy, fire a shot near him and then interpret his running as an

aggressive act justifying his killing.

This technique was described approvingly by retired Gen. Colin Powell in his

widely praised autobiography, My American Journey.

"I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male," Powell

wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely

suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him.

If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the

next burst was not in front, but at him.

"Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at

Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy

sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only

one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine

perceptions of right and wrong."

While it's true that combat is brutal and judgments can be clouded by fear,

the mowing down of unarmed civilians in cold blood doesn't constitute

combat. Under the laws of war, it is regarded as murder and, indeed, a war

crime.

Neither can the combat death of a fellow soldier be cited as an excuse to

murder civilians. [For more on Powell's justification for war crimes, see

Chapter 8 in Neck Deep [12].]

In effect, Bush's "global war on terror" has reestablished what looks like

the Vietnam-era Operation Phoenix, a program that assassinated Vietcong

cadre, including suspected communist political allies.

By early 2005, as the Iraqi insurgency grew, the Bush administration

reportedly debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to

the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived leftists

who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early

1980s.

According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the

adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan administration

as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.

"Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been a

success - despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.

The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures in

the Central American operations of the 1980s, including Elliott Abrams, who

is now an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security Council.

Wanton Death

In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth

commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan

highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole

villages, such as the slaughter committed by a U.S.-trained battalion

against hundreds of men, women and children near the town of El Mozote in

1981.

The Reagan administration's "Salvador option" also had a domestic component,

the so-called "perception management" operation that employed sophisticated

propaganda to manipulate the fears of the American people while hiding the

ugly reality of the wars. [see Robert Parry's Lost History [13].]

Bush has taken the position that he can override both international law and

the U.S. Constitution in deciding who gets basic human rights and who

doesn't.

He sees himself as the final judge of whether people he deems "bad guys"

should live or die, or face indefinite imprisonment and even torture.

The troubling picture is that the U.S. chain of command, presumably up to

Bush, has authorized loose "rules of engagement" that allow targeted

killings - as well as other objectionable tactics including arbitrary

arrests, "enhanced interrogations," kidnappings in third countries with

"extraordinary renditions" to countries that torture, secret CIA prisons,

and detentions without trial.

This anything-goes approach has been conveyed down to soldiers in the field

who believe they have wide discretion to kill Iraqis and Afghanis on the

slightest suspicion. With rare exceptions - like the conviction of Sgt.

Vela - the U.S. military has become a law onto itself, an extension of

President Bush's megalomania.

_______

--

NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

available to advance understanding of

political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I

believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b47f14$0$20014$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

> Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers

>

> By Robert Parry

>

> Created Feb 13 2008 - 9:22am

>

>

> By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan - and by

> winking at torture and indiscriminate killings - George W. Bush is

> degrading

> the reputation of the U.S. military, turning enlisted soldiers and

> intelligence officers into murderers and sadists.

>

> For instance, on Feb. 10 at Camp Liberty in Iraq, Army Ranger Sgt. Evan

> Vela

> was sentenced by a U.S. military court to 10 years in prison for executing

> an unarmed Iraqi detainee who - along with his son - had stumbled into a

> U.S. sniper position last year.

>

> After letting the 17-year-old son go, Vela's squad leader, Staff Sgt.

> Michael Hensley ordered Vela to use a 9-millimeter pistol to shoot the

> father, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, in the head, an order that Vela

> carried out.

>

> "It was murder, plain and simple," military prosecutor, Major Charles

> Kuhfahl, told the court.

>

> Janabi's son, Mustafa, was allowed to make a statement, explaining how his

> father's death had devastated the family and how one of his four younger

> brothers now avoids their home because he can't stand the sight of his

> father's empty room.

>

> "Please don't forget about us," Mustafa told the court.

>

> But Vela's guilty verdict was a rare case of holding a U.S. soldier

> accountable in the killing or abusing of an Iraqi. Among the infrequent

> cases that have been brought, most end in acquittals or convictions only

> on

> minor charges.

>

> Last November, for example, another military jury acquitted Hensley in the

> same murder of Janabi as well as in the killing of two other Iraqi men

> south

> of Baghdad in the early days of Bush's troop "surge." That jury ruled that

> Hensley was following the approved "rules of engagement," though it did

> convict him of planting an AK-47 on one victim.

>

> Some of Vela's military comrades complained that it was unfair to single

> any

> of them out for punishment because these killings are so common in Iraq.

>

> Vela's former platoon commander, Sgt. First Class Steven Kipling, said

> that

> if all U.S. combat soldiers in Iraq were subjected to the same scrutiny

> applied to Vela, "we would have thousands" of cases. [NYT, Feb. 11, 2008

> [1]]

>

> Indeed, the evidence does suggest that the handful of homicide cases from

> Iraq and Afghanistan that reach military trial represent only a small

> fraction of the unprovoked killings of locals at the hands of U.S.

> soldiers.

>

> Press Attention

>

> The murder and abuse cases that do result in trials often stem from

> incidents that get news media attention, like the mass killing of two

> dozen

> Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, which Time magazine exposed.

>

> Even more memorable was the case of the sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi

> detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, mistreatment that was documented with

> photographs that reached the U.S. news media in 2004.

>

> President Bush, who then was seeking reelection, joined in denouncing the

> low-ranking soldiers who had dressed Iraqi men up in women's underwear or

> made them pose naked on leashes or in fake sexual positions.

>

> Bush said he "shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the

> way they were treated." Other senior administration officials called the

> Abu

> Ghraib guards - mostly poorly trained reservists - a "few bad apples."

>

> Amid the furor, some Abu Ghraib guards claimed they were simply following

> guidance from intelligence interrogators on techniques to "soften up"

> detainees. But the Bush administration stuck to its story that the guards

> were an out-of-control night shift.

>

> Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence

> officer

> at Abu Ghraib to support the guards' claim that the prisoner abuse was

> part

> of the "alternative interrogation techniques" that had made their way from

> Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

>

> Provance, however, was punished for his candor and pushed out of the U.S.

> military. The Bush administration went ahead with plans to pin the blame

> on

> the MPs. [see Consortiumnews.com's "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib [2]."]

>

> Only after Election 2004 did evidence surface revealing that the sexual

> abuse of the Abu Ghraib prisoners did fit with the broader policy -

> approved

> by President Bush and other senior administration officials - to break

> down

> prisoners for interrogation.

>

> For instance, alleged 9/11 plotter Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was sent to

> Guantanamo in 2002, was subjected to treatment similar to what later

> occurred at Abu Ghraib. Qahtani was forced to wear a bra, had a thong

> placed

> on his head, was paraded naked in front of women and was led around on a

> leash like a dog, military investigators reported in 2005 [3].

>

> Nevertheless, at Abu Ghraib, only the guards got serious punishment.

> Eventually, 11 enlisted soldiers were convicted in courts martial.

>

> Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the harshest sentence - 10 years in

> prison - while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was

> photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee's

> penis,

> was sentenced to three years in prison. Their superior officers either

> were

> cleared of wrongdoing or received mild reprimands.

>

> Bush continued to treat the Abu Ghraib scandal like a freak incident that

> the media had blown out of proportion. At a press conference on May 25,

> 2006, he complained, "We've been paying for that for a long period of

> time."

>

> Into the Gutter

>

> Never has Bush acknowledged that the abusive treatment of detainees - or

> the

> killing of unarmed Iraqis and Afghanis - are a natural result of his

> aggressive war strategies, nor that he is the one primarily responsible

> for

> dragging the worldwide reputation of the U.S. military and intelligence

> services into the gutter.

>

> In the "war on terror," Bush has asserted unlimited presidential authority

> that he claims lets him kill, imprison, spy on and torture anyone anywhere

> in the world, U.S. citizens and foreigners alike. [see

> Consortiumnews.com's

> "Bush 'Apex' of Unlimited Power [4]" or the book, Neck Deep [5].]

>

> A former senior administration official told the Washington Post in 2004

> that Bush "felt very keenly that his primary responsibility was to do

> everything within his power to keep the country safe, and he was not

> concerned with appearances or politics or hiding behind lower-level

> officials." [Washington Post, June 9, 2004]

>

> Bush, however, has hid behind lower-level people, especially the soldiers

> on

> the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have faced multiple

> assignments to the war zones with relatively brief periods of home leave.

>

> As one member of Sgt. Vela's sniper team, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, said: "It's

> a

> terrible war out there. And you have to make tough decisions. This war

> doesn't

> provide that luxury to be perfect."

>

> In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Sgt. Hensley, who gave

> Vela

> the order to execute the Iraqi detainee Janabi, complained that he

> [Hensley]

> should not have even faced a court martial because he was following

> guidance

> from two superior officers who wanted him to boost the unit's kill count.

>

> "Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist," Hensley wrote. "We

> were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys did not

> die." [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007 [6]]

>

> In another incident near the town of Iskandariya, Iraq, on April 27, 2007,

> Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. received an order from Sgt. Hensley to

> kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of

> being an insurgent posing as a farmer.

>

> Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted because the military jury accepted

> defense arguments that the killing was within the rules of engagement.

> (Sandoval was convicted of a lesser charge of planting a coil of copper

> wire

> on a slain Iraqi, and was sentenced to five months in prison.)

>

> The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the

> Pentagon's

> Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop

> "bait" - such as electrical cords and ammunition - and then shoot Iraqis

> who

> pick up the items. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007 [7]]

>

> Afghani Shot

>

> A similar case of authorized murder of an insurgent suspect surfaced at a

> military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September

> 2007.

> Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani

> who was a suspected leader of an insurgent group.

>

> Special Forces Capt. Dave Staffel and Sgt. Troy Anderson were leading a

> team

> of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where the suspected

> insurgent

> leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man believed to be

> Nawab

> Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the village of Hasan Kheyl.

>

> While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might be

> wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and the

> Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined Joint

> Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as "the kill-or-capture

> list."

>

> Concluding that the man was Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel gave the order to

> shoot, and Anderson - from a distance of about 100 yards away - fired a

> bullet through the man's head, killing him instantly.

>

> The soldiers viewed the killing as "a textbook example of a classified

> mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement,"

> the

> International Herald Tribune reported. "The men said such rules allowed

> them

> to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist

> cell leader, once they positively identified him."

>

> Staffel's civilian lawyer Mark Waple said the Army's Criminal

> Investigation

> Command concluded in April that the shooting was "justifiable homicide,"

> but

> a two-star general in Afghanistan instigated a murder charge against the

> two

> men. That case, however, foundered over accusations that the charge was

> improperly filed. [iHT, Sept. 17, 2007 [8]]

>

> According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, the earlier Army

> investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been operating

> under rules of engagement that empowered them to kill individuals who have

> been designated "enemy combatants," even if the targets were unarmed and

> presented no visible threat.

>

> In late September 2007, a U.S. military judge dismissed all charges [9]

> against the two soldiers, ruling it was conceivable that the detained

> Afghani was wearing a suicide explosive belt, though there was no evidence

> that he was.

>

> Loose Rules

>

> The U.S. counterinsurgency and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

> also have been augmented by heavily armed mercenaries, such as the

> Blackwater "security contractors" who operate outside the law and were

> accused by Iraqi authorities of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting

> incident on Sept. 16, 2007.

>

> Though most media criticism has focused on trigger-happy Blackwater

> "security contractors," Bush's military strategy has employed its own

> indiscriminate firepower - from the loose rules of engagement for U.S.

> troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to

> missiles launched from Predator drones.

>

> For instance, the U.S. military acknowledged on Oct. 23, 2007, that an

> American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after

> someone allegedly shot at the helicopter as it flew over the village of

> Mukaisheefa, north of Baghdad.

>

> Iraqi police and witnesses said 16 people died, apparently as some rushed

> to

> help a wounded man, the New York Times reported. The helicopter gunners

> presumed the wounded man to be an insurgent and thus opened fire on the

> locals who came to his aid, according to witnesses.

>

> "The locals went to check if he was dead and gathered around him," said

> Mohanad Hamid Muhsin, a 14-year-old who was shot in the leg. "But the

> helicopter opened fire again and killed some of the locals and wounded

> others."

>

> When Iraqis carried the wounded into houses to administer first aid, the

> helicopter fired on the houses, killing and wounding more people, said

> Muhsin, who added that the dead included two of his brothers and a sister.

> A local police official said the 16 dead included six women and three

> children, while 14 other Iraqis were wounded.

>

> The incident followed on the heels of an Oct. 21 gun battle in which 49

> people died when U.S. forces attacked alleged Shiite militiamen in Sadr

> City, a crowded slum in eastern Baghdad. Local authorities said the dead

> included innocent bystanders. [NYT, Oct. 24, 2007 [10]]

>

> Another account of the Oct. 23 incident in the Los Angeles Times quoted

> residents saying the men who were killed were farmers irrigating their

> fields in the pre-daylight hours.

>

> Abdul Wahab Ahmed, a neighbor, said the U.S. attack also involved jets

> that

> conducted two bombing runs. The dead included two toddlers and four

> teenagers, he said. [Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24, 2007 [11]]

>

> The U.S. military said one of those killed in the Oct. 23 attack was "a

> known member of an I.E.D. cell," referring to improvised explosive devices

> that Iraqi insurgents have made their weapon of choice in fighting the

> U.S.

> occupation.

>

> The American statement added that four other "military-age males" were

> killed along with five women and one child. U.S. military spokesmen often

> justify killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by noting that the dead are

> military-age males (or MAMs), slain in the vicinity of a firefight.

>

> Vietnam Echo

>

> The shoot-to-kill strategy toward MAMs has a resonance back to the Vietnam

> War when U.S. helicopter-borne troops sometimes would spot a MAM working

> in

> a rice paddy, fire a shot near him and then interpret his running as an

> aggressive act justifying his killing.

>

> This technique was described approvingly by retired Gen. Colin Powell in

> his

> widely praised autobiography, My American Journey.

>

> "I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male,"

> Powell

> wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely

> suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of

> him.

> If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the

> next burst was not in front, but at him.

>

> "Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served

> at

> Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy

> sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only

> one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine

> perceptions of right and wrong."

>

> While it's true that combat is brutal and judgments can be clouded by

> fear,

> the mowing down of unarmed civilians in cold blood doesn't constitute

> combat. Under the laws of war, it is regarded as murder and, indeed, a war

> crime.

>

> Neither can the combat death of a fellow soldier be cited as an excuse to

> murder civilians. [For more on Powell's justification for war crimes, see

> Chapter 8 in Neck Deep [12].]

>

> In effect, Bush's "global war on terror" has reestablished what looks like

> the Vietnam-era Operation Phoenix, a program that assassinated Vietcong

> cadre, including suspected communist political allies.

>

> By early 2005, as the Iraqi insurgency grew, the Bush administration

> reportedly debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to

> the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived

> leftists

> who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early

> 1980s.

>

> According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the

> adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan

> administration

> as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.

>

> "Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been

> a

> success - despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.

>

> The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures

> in

> the Central American operations of the 1980s, including Elliott Abrams,

> who

> is now an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security

> Council.

>

> Wanton Death

>

> In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth

> commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan

> highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole

> villages, such as the slaughter committed by a U.S.-trained battalion

> against hundreds of men, women and children near the town of El Mozote in

> 1981.

>

> The Reagan administration's "Salvador option" also had a domestic

> component,

> the so-called "perception management" operation that employed

> sophisticated

> propaganda to manipulate the fears of the American people while hiding the

> ugly reality of the wars. [see Robert Parry's Lost History [13].]

>

> Bush has taken the position that he can override both international law

> and

> the U.S. Constitution in deciding who gets basic human rights and who

> doesn't.

> He sees himself as the final judge of whether people he deems "bad guys"

> should live or die, or face indefinite imprisonment and even torture.

>

> The troubling picture is that the U.S. chain of command, presumably up to

> Bush, has authorized loose "rules of engagement" that allow targeted

> killings - as well as other objectionable tactics including arbitrary

> arrests, "enhanced interrogations," kidnappings in third countries with

> "extraordinary renditions" to countries that torture, secret CIA prisons,

> and detentions without trial.

>

> This anything-goes approach has been conveyed down to soldiers in the

> field

> who believe they have wide discretion to kill Iraqis and Afghanis on the

> slightest suspicion. With rare exceptions - like the conviction of Sgt.

> Vela - the U.S. military has become a law onto itself, an extension of

> President Bush's megalomania.

> _______

>

>

>

> --

> NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

> always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

> available to advance understanding of

> political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues.

> I

> believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

> provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

> Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

>

> "A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

> spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

> government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

> suffering deeply in spirit,

> and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

> debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

> patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

> back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are

> at

> stake."

> -Thomas Jefferson

Everybody is good at something, and George Bush is good at insulting our

intelligence. To be fair, we can't be sure if Bush presumes we are morons or

if he is sincerely ignorant.

You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

people. It is as simple as that. And if you decide to go to war, then it

is much better to win that war, than to lose the war. No one goes to war to

lose a war, at least they should not go to war, if they have no desire or

will to win.

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b47f14$0$20014$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

> Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers

>

> By Robert Parry

>

> Created Feb 13 2008 - 9:22am

>

>

> By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan - and by

> winking at torture and indiscriminate killings - George W. Bush is

> degrading

> the reputation of the U.S. military, turning enlisted soldiers and

> intelligence officers into murderers and sadists.

>

> For instance, on Feb. 10 at Camp Liberty in Iraq, Army Ranger Sgt. Evan

> Vela

> was sentenced by a U.S. military court to 10 years in prison for executing

> an unarmed Iraqi detainee who - along with his son - had stumbled into a

> U.S. sniper position last year.

>

> After letting the 17-year-old son go, Vela's squad leader, Staff Sgt.

> Michael Hensley ordered Vela to use a 9-millimeter pistol to shoot the

> father, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, in the head, an order that Vela

> carried out.

>

> "It was murder, plain and simple," military prosecutor, Major Charles

> Kuhfahl, told the court.

>

> Janabi's son, Mustafa, was allowed to make a statement, explaining how his

> father's death had devastated the family and how one of his four younger

> brothers now avoids their home because he can't stand the sight of his

> father's empty room.

>

> "Please don't forget about us," Mustafa told the court.

>

> But Vela's guilty verdict was a rare case of holding a U.S. soldier

> accountable in the killing or abusing of an Iraqi. Among the infrequent

> cases that have been brought, most end in acquittals or convictions only

> on

> minor charges.

>

> Last November, for example, another military jury acquitted Hensley in the

> same murder of Janabi as well as in the killing of two other Iraqi men

> south

> of Baghdad in the early days of Bush's troop "surge." That jury ruled that

> Hensley was following the approved "rules of engagement," though it did

> convict him of planting an AK-47 on one victim.

>

> Some of Vela's military comrades complained that it was unfair to single

> any

> of them out for punishment because these killings are so common in Iraq.

>

> Vela's former platoon commander, Sgt. First Class Steven Kipling, said

> that

> if all U.S. combat soldiers in Iraq were subjected to the same scrutiny

> applied to Vela, "we would have thousands" of cases. [NYT, Feb. 11, 2008

> [1]]

>

> Indeed, the evidence does suggest that the handful of homicide cases from

> Iraq and Afghanistan that reach military trial represent only a small

> fraction of the unprovoked killings of locals at the hands of U.S.

> soldiers.

>

> Press Attention

>

> The murder and abuse cases that do result in trials often stem from

> incidents that get news media attention, like the mass killing of two

> dozen

> Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, which Time magazine exposed.

>

> Even more memorable was the case of the sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi

> detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, mistreatment that was documented with

> photographs that reached the U.S. news media in 2004.

>

> President Bush, who then was seeking reelection, joined in denouncing the

> low-ranking soldiers who had dressed Iraqi men up in women's underwear or

> made them pose naked on leashes or in fake sexual positions.

>

> Bush said he "shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the

> way they were treated." Other senior administration officials called the

> Abu

> Ghraib guards - mostly poorly trained reservists - a "few bad apples."

>

> Amid the furor, some Abu Ghraib guards claimed they were simply following

> guidance from intelligence interrogators on techniques to "soften up"

> detainees. But the Bush administration stuck to its story that the guards

> were an out-of-control night shift.

>

> Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence

> officer

> at Abu Ghraib to support the guards' claim that the prisoner abuse was

> part

> of the "alternative interrogation techniques" that had made their way from

> Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

>

> Provance, however, was punished for his candor and pushed out of the U.S.

> military. The Bush administration went ahead with plans to pin the blame

> on

> the MPs. [see Consortiumnews.com's "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib [2]."]

>

> Only after Election 2004 did evidence surface revealing that the sexual

> abuse of the Abu Ghraib prisoners did fit with the broader policy -

> approved

> by President Bush and other senior administration officials - to break

> down

> prisoners for interrogation.

>

> For instance, alleged 9/11 plotter Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was sent to

> Guantanamo in 2002, was subjected to treatment similar to what later

> occurred at Abu Ghraib. Qahtani was forced to wear a bra, had a thong

> placed

> on his head, was paraded naked in front of women and was led around on a

> leash like a dog, military investigators reported in 2005 [3].

>

> Nevertheless, at Abu Ghraib, only the guards got serious punishment.

> Eventually, 11 enlisted soldiers were convicted in courts martial.

>

> Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the harshest sentence - 10 years in

> prison - while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was

> photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee's

> penis,

> was sentenced to three years in prison. Their superior officers either

> were

> cleared of wrongdoing or received mild reprimands.

>

> Bush continued to treat the Abu Ghraib scandal like a freak incident that

> the media had blown out of proportion. At a press conference on May 25,

> 2006, he complained, "We've been paying for that for a long period of

> time."

>

> Into the Gutter

>

> Never has Bush acknowledged that the abusive treatment of detainees - or

> the

> killing of unarmed Iraqis and Afghanis - are a natural result of his

> aggressive war strategies, nor that he is the one primarily responsible

> for

> dragging the worldwide reputation of the U.S. military and intelligence

> services into the gutter.

>

> In the "war on terror," Bush has asserted unlimited presidential authority

> that he claims lets him kill, imprison, spy on and torture anyone anywhere

> in the world, U.S. citizens and foreigners alike. [see

> Consortiumnews.com's

> "Bush 'Apex' of Unlimited Power [4]" or the book, Neck Deep [5].]

>

> A former senior administration official told the Washington Post in 2004

> that Bush "felt very keenly that his primary responsibility was to do

> everything within his power to keep the country safe, and he was not

> concerned with appearances or politics or hiding behind lower-level

> officials." [Washington Post, June 9, 2004]

>

> Bush, however, has hid behind lower-level people, especially the soldiers

> on

> the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have faced multiple

> assignments to the war zones with relatively brief periods of home leave.

>

> As one member of Sgt. Vela's sniper team, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, said: "It's

> a

> terrible war out there. And you have to make tough decisions. This war

> doesn't

> provide that luxury to be perfect."

>

> In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Sgt. Hensley, who gave

> Vela

> the order to execute the Iraqi detainee Janabi, complained that he

> [Hensley]

> should not have even faced a court martial because he was following

> guidance

> from two superior officers who wanted him to boost the unit's kill count.

>

> "Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist," Hensley wrote. "We

> were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys did not

> die." [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007 [6]]

>

> In another incident near the town of Iskandariya, Iraq, on April 27, 2007,

> Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. received an order from Sgt. Hensley to

> kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of

> being an insurgent posing as a farmer.

>

> Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted because the military jury accepted

> defense arguments that the killing was within the rules of engagement.

> (Sandoval was convicted of a lesser charge of planting a coil of copper

> wire

> on a slain Iraqi, and was sentenced to five months in prison.)

>

> The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the

> Pentagon's

> Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop

> "bait" - such as electrical cords and ammunition - and then shoot Iraqis

> who

> pick up the items. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007 [7]]

>

> Afghani Shot

>

> A similar case of authorized murder of an insurgent suspect surfaced at a

> military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September

> 2007.

> Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani

> who was a suspected leader of an insurgent group.

>

> Special Forces Capt. Dave Staffel and Sgt. Troy Anderson were leading a

> team

> of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where the suspected

> insurgent

> leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man believed to be

> Nawab

> Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the village of Hasan Kheyl.

>

> While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might be

> wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and the

> Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined Joint

> Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as "the kill-or-capture

> list."

>

> Concluding that the man was Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel gave the order to

> shoot, and Anderson - from a distance of about 100 yards away - fired a

> bullet through the man's head, killing him instantly.

>

> The soldiers viewed the killing as "a textbook example of a classified

> mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement,"

> the

> International Herald Tribune reported. "The men said such rules allowed

> them

> to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist

> cell leader, once they positively identified him."

>

> Staffel's civilian lawyer Mark Waple said the Army's Criminal

> Investigation

> Command concluded in April that the shooting was "justifiable homicide,"

> but

> a two-star general in Afghanistan instigated a murder charge against the

> two

> men. That case, however, foundered over accusations that the charge was

> improperly filed. [iHT, Sept. 17, 2007 [8]]

>

> According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, the earlier Army

> investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been operating

> under rules of engagement that empowered them to kill individuals who have

> been designated "enemy combatants," even if the targets were unarmed and

> presented no visible threat.

>

> In late September 2007, a U.S. military judge dismissed all charges [9]

> against the two soldiers, ruling it was conceivable that the detained

> Afghani was wearing a suicide explosive belt, though there was no evidence

> that he was.

>

> Loose Rules

>

> The U.S. counterinsurgency and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

> also have been augmented by heavily armed mercenaries, such as the

> Blackwater "security contractors" who operate outside the law and were

> accused by Iraqi authorities of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting

> incident on Sept. 16, 2007.

>

> Though most media criticism has focused on trigger-happy Blackwater

> "security contractors," Bush's military strategy has employed its own

> indiscriminate firepower - from the loose rules of engagement for U.S.

> troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to

> missiles launched from Predator drones.

>

> For instance, the U.S. military acknowledged on Oct. 23, 2007, that an

> American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after

> someone allegedly shot at the helicopter as it flew over the village of

> Mukaisheefa, north of Baghdad.

>

> Iraqi police and witnesses said 16 people died, apparently as some rushed

> to

> help a wounded man, the New York Times reported. The helicopter gunners

> presumed the wounded man to be an insurgent and thus opened fire on the

> locals who came to his aid, according to witnesses.

>

> "The locals went to check if he was dead and gathered around him," said

> Mohanad Hamid Muhsin, a 14-year-old who was shot in the leg. "But the

> helicopter opened fire again and killed some of the locals and wounded

> others."

>

> When Iraqis carried the wounded into houses to administer first aid, the

> helicopter fired on the houses, killing and wounding more people, said

> Muhsin, who added that the dead included two of his brothers and a sister.

> A local police official said the 16 dead included six women and three

> children, while 14 other Iraqis were wounded.

>

> The incident followed on the heels of an Oct. 21 gun battle in which 49

> people died when U.S. forces attacked alleged Shiite militiamen in Sadr

> City, a crowded slum in eastern Baghdad. Local authorities said the dead

> included innocent bystanders. [NYT, Oct. 24, 2007 [10]]

>

> Another account of the Oct. 23 incident in the Los Angeles Times quoted

> residents saying the men who were killed were farmers irrigating their

> fields in the pre-daylight hours.

>

> Abdul Wahab Ahmed, a neighbor, said the U.S. attack also involved jets

> that

> conducted two bombing runs. The dead included two toddlers and four

> teenagers, he said. [Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24, 2007 [11]]

>

> The U.S. military said one of those killed in the Oct. 23 attack was "a

> known member of an I.E.D. cell," referring to improvised explosive devices

> that Iraqi insurgents have made their weapon of choice in fighting the

> U.S.

> occupation.

>

> The American statement added that four other "military-age males" were

> killed along with five women and one child. U.S. military spokesmen often

> justify killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by noting that the dead are

> military-age males (or MAMs), slain in the vicinity of a firefight.

>

> Vietnam Echo

>

> The shoot-to-kill strategy toward MAMs has a resonance back to the Vietnam

> War when U.S. helicopter-borne troops sometimes would spot a MAM working

> in

> a rice paddy, fire a shot near him and then interpret his running as an

> aggressive act justifying his killing.

>

> This technique was described approvingly by retired Gen. Colin Powell in

> his

> widely praised autobiography, My American Journey.

>

> "I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male,"

> Powell

> wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely

> suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of

> him.

> If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the

> next burst was not in front, but at him.

>

> "Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served

> at

> Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy

> sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only

> one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine

> perceptions of right and wrong."

>

> While it's true that combat is brutal and judgments can be clouded by

> fear,

> the mowing down of unarmed civilians in cold blood doesn't constitute

> combat. Under the laws of war, it is regarded as murder and, indeed, a war

> crime.

>

> Neither can the combat death of a fellow soldier be cited as an excuse to

> murder civilians. [For more on Powell's justification for war crimes, see

> Chapter 8 in Neck Deep [12].]

>

> In effect, Bush's "global war on terror" has reestablished what looks like

> the Vietnam-era Operation Phoenix, a program that assassinated Vietcong

> cadre, including suspected communist political allies.

>

> By early 2005, as the Iraqi insurgency grew, the Bush administration

> reportedly debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to

> the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived

> leftists

> who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early

> 1980s.

>

> According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the

> adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan

> administration

> as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.

>

> "Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been

> a

> success - despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.

>

> The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures

> in

> the Central American operations of the 1980s, including Elliott Abrams,

> who

> is now an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security

> Council.

>

> Wanton Death

>

> In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth

> commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan

> highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole

> villages, such as the slaughter committed by a U.S.-trained battalion

> against hundreds of men, women and children near the town of El Mozote in

> 1981.

>

> The Reagan administration's "Salvador option" also had a domestic

> component,

> the so-called "perception management" operation that employed

> sophisticated

> propaganda to manipulate the fears of the American people while hiding the

> ugly reality of the wars. [see Robert Parry's Lost History [13].]

>

> Bush has taken the position that he can override both international law

> and

> the U.S. Constitution in deciding who gets basic human rights and who

> doesn't.

> He sees himself as the final judge of whether people he deems "bad guys"

> should live or die, or face indefinite imprisonment and even torture.

>

> The troubling picture is that the U.S. chain of command, presumably up to

> Bush, has authorized loose "rules of engagement" that allow targeted

> killings - as well as other objectionable tactics including arbitrary

> arrests, "enhanced interrogations," kidnappings in third countries with

> "extraordinary renditions" to countries that torture, secret CIA prisons,

> and detentions without trial.

>

> This anything-goes approach has been conveyed down to soldiers in the

> field

> who believe they have wide discretion to kill Iraqis and Afghanis on the

> slightest suspicion. With rare exceptions - like the conviction of Sgt.

> Vela - the U.S. military has become a law onto itself, an extension of

> President Bush's megalomania.

> _______

>

>

>

> --

> NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

> always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

> available to advance understanding of

> political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues.

> I

> believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

> provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

> Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

>

> "A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

> spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

> government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

> suffering deeply in spirit,

> and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

> debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

> patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

> back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are

> at

> stake."

> -Thomas Jefferson

>

>

>

On Feb 14, 1:44 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

> people. It is as simple as that. And if you decide to go to war, then it

> is much better to win that war, than to lose the war. No one goes to war to

> lose a war, at least they should not go to war, if they have no desire or

> will to win.

Why are we losing the war at the border? Why are we afraid to kill

narco terrorists that penetrate into the country? Why do we imprison

are own border patrolmen risking their lives for a corrupt President?

Bill O'Really

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

> people. It is as simple as that.

No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you admirers of

Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn their backs on

torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>

>

> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:47b47f14$0$20014$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>> Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers

>>

>> By Robert Parry

>>

>> Created Feb 13 2008 - 9:22am

>>

>>

>> By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan - and by

>> winking at torture and indiscriminate killings - George W. Bush is

>> degrading

>> the reputation of the U.S. military, turning enlisted soldiers and

>> intelligence officers into murderers and sadists.

>>

>> For instance, on Feb. 10 at Camp Liberty in Iraq, Army Ranger Sgt. Evan

>> Vela

>> was sentenced by a U.S. military court to 10 years in prison for

>> executing

>> an unarmed Iraqi detainee who - along with his son - had stumbled into a

>> U.S. sniper position last year.

>>

>> After letting the 17-year-old son go, Vela's squad leader, Staff Sgt.

>> Michael Hensley ordered Vela to use a 9-millimeter pistol to shoot the

>> father, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, in the head, an order that Vela

>> carried out.

>>

>> "It was murder, plain and simple," military prosecutor, Major Charles

>> Kuhfahl, told the court.

>>

>> Janabi's son, Mustafa, was allowed to make a statement, explaining how

>> his

>> father's death had devastated the family and how one of his four younger

>> brothers now avoids their home because he can't stand the sight of his

>> father's empty room.

>>

>> "Please don't forget about us," Mustafa told the court.

>>

>> But Vela's guilty verdict was a rare case of holding a U.S. soldier

>> accountable in the killing or abusing of an Iraqi. Among the infrequent

>> cases that have been brought, most end in acquittals or convictions only

>> on

>> minor charges.

>>

>> Last November, for example, another military jury acquitted Hensley in

>> the

>> same murder of Janabi as well as in the killing of two other Iraqi men

>> south

>> of Baghdad in the early days of Bush's troop "surge." That jury ruled

>> that

>> Hensley was following the approved "rules of engagement," though it did

>> convict him of planting an AK-47 on one victim.

>>

>> Some of Vela's military comrades complained that it was unfair to single

>> any

>> of them out for punishment because these killings are so common in Iraq.

>>

>> Vela's former platoon commander, Sgt. First Class Steven Kipling, said

>> that

>> if all U.S. combat soldiers in Iraq were subjected to the same scrutiny

>> applied to Vela, "we would have thousands" of cases. [NYT, Feb. 11, 2008

>> [1]]

>>

>> Indeed, the evidence does suggest that the handful of homicide cases from

>> Iraq and Afghanistan that reach military trial represent only a small

>> fraction of the unprovoked killings of locals at the hands of U.S.

>> soldiers.

>>

>> Press Attention

>>

>> The murder and abuse cases that do result in trials often stem from

>> incidents that get news media attention, like the mass killing of two

>> dozen

>> Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, which Time magazine exposed.

>>

>> Even more memorable was the case of the sexual and physical abuse of

>> Iraqi

>> detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, mistreatment that was documented with

>> photographs that reached the U.S. news media in 2004.

>>

>> President Bush, who then was seeking reelection, joined in denouncing the

>> low-ranking soldiers who had dressed Iraqi men up in women's underwear or

>> made them pose naked on leashes or in fake sexual positions.

>>

>> Bush said he "shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the

>> way they were treated." Other senior administration officials called the

>> Abu

>> Ghraib guards - mostly poorly trained reservists - a "few bad apples."

>>

>> Amid the furor, some Abu Ghraib guards claimed they were simply following

>> guidance from intelligence interrogators on techniques to "soften up"

>> detainees. But the Bush administration stuck to its story that the guards

>> were an out-of-control night shift.

>>

>> Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence

>> officer

>> at Abu Ghraib to support the guards' claim that the prisoner abuse was

>> part

>> of the "alternative interrogation techniques" that had made their way

>> from

>> Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

>>

>> Provance, however, was punished for his candor and pushed out of the U.S.

>> military. The Bush administration went ahead with plans to pin the blame

>> on

>> the MPs. [see Consortiumnews.com's "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib [2]."]

>>

>> Only after Election 2004 did evidence surface revealing that the sexual

>> abuse of the Abu Ghraib prisoners did fit with the broader policy -

>> approved

>> by President Bush and other senior administration officials - to break

>> down

>> prisoners for interrogation.

>>

>> For instance, alleged 9/11 plotter Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was sent to

>> Guantanamo in 2002, was subjected to treatment similar to what later

>> occurred at Abu Ghraib. Qahtani was forced to wear a bra, had a thong

>> placed

>> on his head, was paraded naked in front of women and was led around on a

>> leash like a dog, military investigators reported in 2005 [3].

>>

>> Nevertheless, at Abu Ghraib, only the guards got serious punishment.

>> Eventually, 11 enlisted soldiers were convicted in courts martial.

>>

>> Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the harshest sentence - 10 years in

>> prison - while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was

>> photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee's

>> penis,

>> was sentenced to three years in prison. Their superior officers either

>> were

>> cleared of wrongdoing or received mild reprimands.

>>

>> Bush continued to treat the Abu Ghraib scandal like a freak incident that

>> the media had blown out of proportion. At a press conference on May 25,

>> 2006, he complained, "We've been paying for that for a long period of

>> time."

>>

>> Into the Gutter

>>

>> Never has Bush acknowledged that the abusive treatment of detainees - or

>> the

>> killing of unarmed Iraqis and Afghanis - are a natural result of his

>> aggressive war strategies, nor that he is the one primarily responsible

>> for

>> dragging the worldwide reputation of the U.S. military and intelligence

>> services into the gutter.

>>

>> In the "war on terror," Bush has asserted unlimited presidential

>> authority

>> that he claims lets him kill, imprison, spy on and torture anyone

>> anywhere

>> in the world, U.S. citizens and foreigners alike. [see

>> Consortiumnews.com's

>> "Bush 'Apex' of Unlimited Power [4]" or the book, Neck Deep [5].]

>>

>> A former senior administration official told the Washington Post in 2004

>> that Bush "felt very keenly that his primary responsibility was to do

>> everything within his power to keep the country safe, and he was not

>> concerned with appearances or politics or hiding behind lower-level

>> officials." [Washington Post, June 9, 2004]

>>

>> Bush, however, has hid behind lower-level people, especially the soldiers

>> on

>> the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have faced multiple

>> assignments to the war zones with relatively brief periods of home leave.

>>

>> As one member of Sgt. Vela's sniper team, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, said:

>> "It's a

>> terrible war out there. And you have to make tough decisions. This war

>> doesn't

>> provide that luxury to be perfect."

>>

>> In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Sgt. Hensley, who gave

>> Vela

>> the order to execute the Iraqi detainee Janabi, complained that he

>> [Hensley]

>> should not have even faced a court martial because he was following

>> guidance

>> from two superior officers who wanted him to boost the unit's kill count.

>>

>> "Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist," Hensley wrote. "We

>> were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys did not

>> die." [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007 [6]]

>>

>> In another incident near the town of Iskandariya, Iraq, on April 27,

>> 2007,

>> Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. received an order from Sgt. Hensley to

>> kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of

>> being an insurgent posing as a farmer.

>>

>> Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted because the military jury accepted

>> defense arguments that the killing was within the rules of engagement.

>> (Sandoval was convicted of a lesser charge of planting a coil of copper

>> wire

>> on a slain Iraqi, and was sentenced to five months in prison.)

>>

>> The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the

>> Pentagon's

>> Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop

>> "bait" - such as electrical cords and ammunition - and then shoot Iraqis

>> who

>> pick up the items. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007 [7]]

>>

>> Afghani Shot

>>

>> A similar case of authorized murder of an insurgent suspect surfaced at a

>> military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September

>> 2007.

>> Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani

>> who was a suspected leader of an insurgent group.

>>

>> Special Forces Capt. Dave Staffel and Sgt. Troy Anderson were leading a

>> team

>> of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where the suspected

>> insurgent

>> leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man believed to be

>> Nawab

>> Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the village of Hasan Kheyl.

>>

>> While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might be

>> wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and the

>> Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined Joint

>> Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as "the kill-or-capture

>> list."

>>

>> Concluding that the man was Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel gave the order to

>> shoot, and Anderson - from a distance of about 100 yards away - fired a

>> bullet through the man's head, killing him instantly.

>>

>> The soldiers viewed the killing as "a textbook example of a classified

>> mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement,"

>> the

>> International Herald Tribune reported. "The men said such rules allowed

>> them

>> to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist

>> cell leader, once they positively identified him."

>>

>> Staffel's civilian lawyer Mark Waple said the Army's Criminal

>> Investigation

>> Command concluded in April that the shooting was "justifiable homicide,"

>> but

>> a two-star general in Afghanistan instigated a murder charge against the

>> two

>> men. That case, however, foundered over accusations that the charge was

>> improperly filed. [iHT, Sept. 17, 2007 [8]]

>>

>> According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, the earlier Army

>> investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been

>> operating

>> under rules of engagement that empowered them to kill individuals who

>> have

>> been designated "enemy combatants," even if the targets were unarmed and

>> presented no visible threat.

>>

>> In late September 2007, a U.S. military judge dismissed all charges [9]

>> against the two soldiers, ruling it was conceivable that the detained

>> Afghani was wearing a suicide explosive belt, though there was no

>> evidence

>> that he was.

>>

>> Loose Rules

>>

>> The U.S. counterinsurgency and security operations in Iraq and

>> Afghanistan

>> also have been augmented by heavily armed mercenaries, such as the

>> Blackwater "security contractors" who operate outside the law and were

>> accused by Iraqi authorities of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting

>> incident on Sept. 16, 2007.

>>

>> Though most media criticism has focused on trigger-happy Blackwater

>> "security contractors," Bush's military strategy has employed its own

>> indiscriminate firepower - from the loose rules of engagement for U.S.

>> troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to

>> missiles launched from Predator drones.

>>

>> For instance, the U.S. military acknowledged on Oct. 23, 2007, that an

>> American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after

>> someone allegedly shot at the helicopter as it flew over the village of

>> Mukaisheefa, north of Baghdad.

>>

>> Iraqi police and witnesses said 16 people died, apparently as some rushed

>> to

>> help a wounded man, the New York Times reported. The helicopter gunners

>> presumed the wounded man to be an insurgent and thus opened fire on the

>> locals who came to his aid, according to witnesses.

>>

>> "The locals went to check if he was dead and gathered around him," said

>> Mohanad Hamid Muhsin, a 14-year-old who was shot in the leg. "But the

>> helicopter opened fire again and killed some of the locals and wounded

>> others."

>>

>> When Iraqis carried the wounded into houses to administer first aid, the

>> helicopter fired on the houses, killing and wounding more people, said

>> Muhsin, who added that the dead included two of his brothers and a

>> sister.

>> A local police official said the 16 dead included six women and three

>> children, while 14 other Iraqis were wounded.

>>

>> The incident followed on the heels of an Oct. 21 gun battle in which 49

>> people died when U.S. forces attacked alleged Shiite militiamen in Sadr

>> City, a crowded slum in eastern Baghdad. Local authorities said the dead

>> included innocent bystanders. [NYT, Oct. 24, 2007 [10]]

>>

>> Another account of the Oct. 23 incident in the Los Angeles Times quoted

>> residents saying the men who were killed were farmers irrigating their

>> fields in the pre-daylight hours.

>>

>> Abdul Wahab Ahmed, a neighbor, said the U.S. attack also involved jets

>> that

>> conducted two bombing runs. The dead included two toddlers and four

>> teenagers, he said. [Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24, 2007 [11]]

>>

>> The U.S. military said one of those killed in the Oct. 23 attack was "a

>> known member of an I.E.D. cell," referring to improvised explosive

>> devices

>> that Iraqi insurgents have made their weapon of choice in fighting the

>> U.S.

>> occupation.

>>

>> The American statement added that four other "military-age males" were

>> killed along with five women and one child. U.S. military spokesmen often

>> justify killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by noting that the dead are

>> military-age males (or MAMs), slain in the vicinity of a firefight.

>>

>> Vietnam Echo

>>

>> The shoot-to-kill strategy toward MAMs has a resonance back to the

>> Vietnam

>> War when U.S. helicopter-borne troops sometimes would spot a MAM working

>> in

>> a rice paddy, fire a shot near him and then interpret his running as an

>> aggressive act justifying his killing.

>>

>> This technique was described approvingly by retired Gen. Colin Powell in

>> his

>> widely praised autobiography, My American Journey.

>>

>> "I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male,"

>> Powell

>> wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely

>> suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of

>> him.

>> If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the

>> next burst was not in front, but at him.

>>

>> "Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served

>> at

>> Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy

>> sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was

>> only

>> one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine

>> perceptions of right and wrong."

>>

>> While it's true that combat is brutal and judgments can be clouded by

>> fear,

>> the mowing down of unarmed civilians in cold blood doesn't constitute

>> combat. Under the laws of war, it is regarded as murder and, indeed, a

>> war

>> crime.

>>

>> Neither can the combat death of a fellow soldier be cited as an excuse to

>> murder civilians. [For more on Powell's justification for war crimes, see

>> Chapter 8 in Neck Deep [12].]

>>

>> In effect, Bush's "global war on terror" has reestablished what looks

>> like

>> the Vietnam-era Operation Phoenix, a program that assassinated Vietcong

>> cadre, including suspected communist political allies.

>>

>> By early 2005, as the Iraqi insurgency grew, the Bush administration

>> reportedly debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to

>> the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived

>> leftists

>> who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early

>> 1980s.

>>

>> According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the

>> adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan

>> administration

>> as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.

>>

>> "Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have

>> been a

>> success - despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.

>>

>> The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures

>> in

>> the Central American operations of the 1980s, including Elliott Abrams,

>> who

>> is now an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security

>> Council.

>>

>> Wanton Death

>>

>> In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth

>> commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the

>> Guatemalan

>> highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole

>> villages, such as the slaughter committed by a U.S.-trained battalion

>> against hundreds of men, women and children near the town of El Mozote in

>> 1981.

>>

>> The Reagan administration's "Salvador option" also had a domestic

>> component,

>> the so-called "perception management" operation that employed

>> sophisticated

>> propaganda to manipulate the fears of the American people while hiding

>> the

>> ugly reality of the wars. [see Robert Parry's Lost History [13].]

>>

>> Bush has taken the position that he can override both international law

>> and

>> the U.S. Constitution in deciding who gets basic human rights and who

>> doesn't.

>> He sees himself as the final judge of whether people he deems "bad guys"

>> should live or die, or face indefinite imprisonment and even torture.

>>

>> The troubling picture is that the U.S. chain of command, presumably up to

>> Bush, has authorized loose "rules of engagement" that allow targeted

>> killings - as well as other objectionable tactics including arbitrary

>> arrests, "enhanced interrogations," kidnappings in third countries with

>> "extraordinary renditions" to countries that torture, secret CIA prisons,

>> and detentions without trial.

>>

>> This anything-goes approach has been conveyed down to soldiers in the

>> field

>> who believe they have wide discretion to kill Iraqis and Afghanis on the

>> slightest suspicion. With rare exceptions - like the conviction of Sgt.

>> Vela - the U.S. military has become a law onto itself, an extension of

>> President Bush's megalomania.

>> _______

>>

>>

>>

>> --

>> NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

>> always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

>> available to advance understanding of

>> political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice

>> issues. I

>> believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

>> provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

>> Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

>>

>> "A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

>> spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore

>> their

>> government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we

>> are

>> suffering deeply in spirit,

>> and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous

>> public

>> debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

>> patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of

>> winning

>> back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are

>> at

>> stake."

>> -Thomas Jefferson

>>

>>

>>

>

On Feb 14, 2:00 pm, "Bill O'Really" <billorea...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 14, 1:44 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>

> > You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

> > people. It is as simple as that. And if you decide to go to war, then it

> > is much better to win that war, than to lose the war. No one goes to war to

> > lose a war, at least they should not go to war, if they have no desire or

> > will to win.

>

> Why are we losing the war at the border? Why are we afraid to kill

> narco terrorists that penetrate into the country? Why do we imprison

> are own border patrolmen risking their lives for a corrupt President?

>

> Bill O'Really

Good question. A lot of Americans want to sit around singing cum by

ya with the terrorists than to hurt them. When Obama get in he'll

lead the chorus.

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

> You have a military to win wars.

You have a military to keep the peace.

Bush needs wars to provide profits and blood.

"Bill O'Really" <billoreally@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:5a12b977-ccac-4069-a1cf-442814b002a8@37g2000hsl.googlegroups.com...

> On Feb 14, 1:44 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>

>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>> people. It is as simple as that. And if you decide to go to war, then

>> it

>> is much better to win that war, than to lose the war. No one goes to war

>> to

>> lose a war, at least they should not go to war, if they have no desire or

>> will to win.

>

> Why are we losing the war at the border? Why are we afraid to kill

> narco terrorists that penetrate into the country? Why do we imprison

> are own border patrolmen risking their lives for a corrupt President?

>

Because it is not a war at our borders.... Because we do not kill narco

terrorist, we arrest them, if they are caught. We imprisoned our own border

patrolmen, because they were charged with a crime, and a jury of their peers

convicted them.

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>

> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>> people. It is as simple as that.

>

> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you admirers

> of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn their backs on

> torture and murder, it's not that simple.

We were talking about war, not torture.

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>

> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>

>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>>> people. It is as simple as that.

>>

>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you admirers

>> of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn their backs on

>> torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>

> We were talking about war, not torture.

Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to comment

on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>

On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:44:55 -1000, "Jerry Okamura"

<okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>people. It is as simple as that. And if you decide to go to war, then it

>is much better to win that war, than to lose the war. No one goes to war to

>lose a war, at least they should not go to war, if they have no desire or

>will to win.

He's only upset because they're not "murdering" the people he deems

worth killing.

--

"The enormously expensive Kyoto recommendations would

save 0.06 polar bears per year at most. But 49 bears

from the same population are getting shot every year,

and this we can easily do something about."

- Bjorn Lomborg

On Feb 14, 5:45 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>

> Because it is not a war at our borders....

You are so clueless.

> Because we do not kill narco

> terrorist, we arrest them,

Yeah and while we try to arrest them and afford them all of

Constitutional benefits, they are killing us.

> if they are caught.

Well you got one thing right, we catch their mules while the Mexican

Govt. is bought off by the Cartel heads.

> We imprisoned our own border

> patrolmen, because they were charged with a crime, and a jury of their peers

> convicted them.

You obviously don't keep up with the story but it is common knowledge

and public record as testified before a house committee that they were

railroaded, that the prosecutor knowingly withheld information from

the jury that the Governments star witness was busted a second time

smuggling more drugs in.

Again you don't know what you are talking about.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255489,00.html

Try listening to someone for once instead of always running your mouth

as if you already know everything.

Bill O'Really

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>

> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>

>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>

>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>>>> people. It is as simple as that.

>>>

>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you admirers

>>> of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn their backs

>>> on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>

>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>

> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to comment

> on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>

And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b5db8c$0$16686$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>

> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>

>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>

>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>

>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without killing

>>>>> people. It is as simple as that.

>>>>

>>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you

>>>> admirers of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn

>>>> their backs on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>>

>>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>>

>> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to

>> comment on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>>

> And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

Under one leader who condones both, it's not possible to separate the two.

That's like trying to separate Japanese military tactics in WWII from

Japanese concentration camps, or trying to separate Germany military

strategy in WWII from the Holocaust.

Bush is no different in this regard. How one prosecutes a war is a function

of how the war is waged AND how the nation's own soldiers are treated as

well as prisoners taken in that war. ALL of these things are taken into

account in the context of "war crimes" Otherwise there would be no such

thing as war crimes. If it made no difference WHY wars were initiated or

how a leader treated his own soldiers or captured enemies none of it would

be open to question or comment. Most modern states have recognized this and

war crime statutes exist to cover both the waging of illegal wars and the

treatment of prisoners.

To date I have found no single document that proves that Adolf Hitler

personally authorized the extermination of the Jews, Gypsies and Mentally

Retarded who were murdered by the nazis. Either Hitler himself or his inner

circle took great pains to attempt to isolate him from personal written

responsibility. But there is no doubt that Adolf Hitler was well aware of

the death camps, of what was going on in those camps, and that he condoned

and encouraged and led the way in these crimes. It's logically possible to

separate his prosecution of the war from these crimes, but it is not MORALLY

possible to make such a separation.

George Bush has referred to himself as "Commander in Chief" more than any US

president in modern history. We have a right and a duty to hold the

Commander in Chief responsible for the conduct of the military and the

military's treatment of prisoners of war. That duty is a part of

Constitutional law and falls under the provisions of Article VI of the

United States Constitution.

So your "commenting" is either intentionally disingenuous or in error. It

may be necessary to "kill people" to win wars, but HOW those people are

killed and how they are treated if only captured are a part of the "law of

nations" that goes back to the beginnings of this country as an established

nation state.

>

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b5dd4f$0$21007$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>

> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

> news:47b5db8c$0$16686$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>

>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>

>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>

>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>

>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without

>>>>>> killing people. It is as simple as that.

>>>>>

>>>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you

>>>>> admirers of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn

>>>>> their backs on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>>>

>>>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>>>

>>> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to

>>> comment on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>>>

>> And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

>

> Under one leader who condones both, it's not possible to separate the two.

> That's like trying to separate Japanese military tactics in WWII from

> Japanese concentration camps, or trying to separate Germany military

> strategy in WWII from the Holocaust.

>

> Bush is no different in this regard. How one prosecutes a war is a

> function of how the war is waged AND how the nation's own soldiers are

> treated as well as prisoners taken in that war. ALL of these things are

> taken into account in the context of "war crimes" Otherwise there would

> be no such thing as war crimes. If it made no difference WHY wars were

> initiated or how a leader treated his own soldiers or captured enemies

> none of it would be open to question or comment. Most modern states have

> recognized this and war crime statutes exist to cover both the waging of

> illegal wars and the treatment of prisoners.

Only losers of war are convicted of committing war crimes. Winners of wars

are not convicted of committing war crimes. Russia committed a whole host

of war crimes during WWII. One can argue that the US committed war crimes

when they bombed the cities of Japan and Germany. North Korea and North

Vietnam committed war crimes....the list is endless of countries who have

committed war crimes and were never charged with committing a war crime.

>

> To date I have found no single document that proves that Adolf Hitler

> personally authorized the extermination of the Jews, Gypsies and Mentally

> Retarded who were murdered by the nazis. Either Hitler himself or his

> inner circle took great pains to attempt to isolate him from personal

> written responsibility. But there is no doubt that Adolf Hitler was well

> aware of the death camps, of what was going on in those camps, and that he

> condoned and encouraged and led the way in these crimes. It's logically

> possible to separate his prosecution of the war from these crimes, but it

> is not MORALLY possible to make such a separation.

Hitler was not charged with a war crime, simply because he committed

suicide. Besides, remember the saying, "the bucks stops here"?

>

> George Bush has referred to himself as "Commander in Chief" more than any

> US president in modern history. We have a right and a duty to hold the

> Commander in Chief responsible for the conduct of the military and the

> military's treatment of prisoners of war. That duty is a part of

> Constitutional law and falls under the provisions of Article VI of the

> United States Constitution.

As well as just about every President who waged war...

>

> So your "commenting" is either intentionally disingenuous or in error. It

> may be necessary to "kill people" to win wars, but HOW those people are

> killed and how they are treated if only captured are a part of the "law of

> nations" that goes back to the beginnings of this country as an

> established nation state.

>

Only when you think there is a right way to kill people and a wrong way to

kill people. It is no consolation to the person who got killed, why they

were killed, they are dead.

>

>>

>

>

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b63300$0$24094$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>

> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:47b5dd4f$0$21007$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>

>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b5db8c$0$16686$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>

>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>

>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>

>>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>>

>>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without

>>>>>>> killing people. It is as simple as that.

>>>>>>

>>>>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you

>>>>>> admirers of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn

>>>>>> their backs on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>>>>

>>>>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>>>>

>>>> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to

>>>> comment on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>>>>

>>> And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

>>

>> Under one leader who condones both, it's not possible to separate the

>> two. That's like trying to separate Japanese military tactics in WWII

>> from Japanese concentration camps, or trying to separate Germany military

>> strategy in WWII from the Holocaust.

>>

>> Bush is no different in this regard. How one prosecutes a war is a

>> function of how the war is waged AND how the nation's own soldiers are

>> treated as well as prisoners taken in that war. ALL of these things are

>> taken into account in the context of "war crimes" Otherwise there would

>> be no such thing as war crimes. If it made no difference WHY wars were

>> initiated or how a leader treated his own soldiers or captured enemies

>> none of it would be open to question or comment. Most modern states have

>> recognized this and war crime statutes exist to cover both the waging of

>> illegal wars and the treatment of prisoners.

>

> Only losers of war are convicted of committing war crimes.

That's as brilliant as saying that only people who are convicted commit

murder.

You're a moron.

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:47b63621$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>

> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

> news:47b63300$0$24094$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>

>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b5dd4f$0$21007$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>

>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b5db8c$0$16686$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>

>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>

>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>>

>>>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>>>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>>>

>>>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without

>>>>>>>> killing people. It is as simple as that.

>>>>>>>

>>>>>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you

>>>>>>> admirers of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn

>>>>>>> their backs on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>>>>>

>>>>>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>>>>>

>>>>> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to

>>>>> comment on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>>>>>

>>>> And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

>>>

>>> Under one leader who condones both, it's not possible to separate the

>>> two. That's like trying to separate Japanese military tactics in WWII

>>> from Japanese concentration camps, or trying to separate Germany

>>> military strategy in WWII from the Holocaust.

>>>

>>> Bush is no different in this regard. How one prosecutes a war is a

>>> function of how the war is waged AND how the nation's own soldiers are

>>> treated as well as prisoners taken in that war. ALL of these things are

>>> taken into account in the context of "war crimes" Otherwise there would

>>> be no such thing as war crimes. If it made no difference WHY wars were

>>> initiated or how a leader treated his own soldiers or captured enemies

>>> none of it would be open to question or comment. Most modern states

>>> have recognized this and war crime statutes exist to cover both the

>>> waging of illegal wars and the treatment of prisoners.

>>

>> Only losers of war are convicted of committing war crimes.

>

> That's as brilliant as saying that only people who are convicted commit

> murder.

>

No, a whole lot of people are convicted of crimes that does not include

murder. But think about this. The Soviet Union during the Second World War

committed numerous war crimes, were they tried for war crimes? The Notrh

Koreans committed war crimes, who in North Korea was tried for war crimes?

The North Vietnamese committed war crimes, who in North Vietnam was tried

for war crimes?

"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

news:47b64f75$0$22816$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>

> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:47b63621$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>

>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>> news:47b63300$0$24094$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>

>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>> news:47b5dd4f$0$21007$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>

>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:47b5db8c$0$16686$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>

>>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>>> news:47b4f27a$0$26122$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>>

>>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>>> news:47b4ef0a$0$17344$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>>>

>>>>>>> "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote in message

>>>>>>> news:47b4b62a$0$13071$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>> "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message

>>>>>>>> news:47b4b653$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>>>>>>>>> You have a military to win wars. You cannot win a war without

>>>>>>>>> killing people. It is as simple as that.

>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>> No, it's not as simple as that. Maybe it's that simple for you

>>>>>>>> admirers of Adolf Hitler, but for real Americans, unwilling to turn

>>>>>>>> their backs on torture and murder, it's not that simple.

>>>>>>>

>>>>>>> We were talking about war, not torture.

>>>>>>

>>>>>> Actually, if you'd read the article you were so stupidly trying to

>>>>>> comment on, you'd have noticed that we were talking about both.

>>>>>>

>>>>> And I was commenting on the part that talked about war.

>>>>

>>>> Under one leader who condones both, it's not possible to separate the

>>>> two. That's like trying to separate Japanese military tactics in WWII

>>>> from Japanese concentration camps, or trying to separate Germany

>>>> military strategy in WWII from the Holocaust.

>>>>

>>>> Bush is no different in this regard. How one prosecutes a war is a

>>>> function of how the war is waged AND how the nation's own soldiers are

>>>> treated as well as prisoners taken in that war. ALL of these things

>>>> are taken into account in the context of "war crimes" Otherwise there

>>>> would be no such thing as war crimes. If it made no difference WHY

>>>> wars were initiated or how a leader treated his own soldiers or

>>>> captured enemies none of it would be open to question or comment. Most

>>>> modern states have recognized this and war crime statutes exist to

>>>> cover both the waging of illegal wars and the treatment of prisoners.

>>>

>>> Only losers of war are convicted of committing war crimes.

>>

>> That's as brilliant as saying that only people who are convicted commit

>> murder.

>>

> No,

Yes. That's exactly what it's like. You ignore every aspect of what war

REALLY is in order to parse out one meager part of it that is at best

nothing more than a tautology.

You're pathetic.