UK Guardian--'Is this our Hola camp?' (British murders in occupied Iraq)

[Aidoneus]

Is this our Hola camp?
British troops are said to have killed 23 innocent Iraqis, and yet the British people and government remain silent
Madeleine Bunting
Monday March 15, 2004
The Guardian

The names of Abdel Jabr Mousa or Baha Mousa have probably not lodged in your memory. Nor Hazim Jum'aa Gatteh Al-Skeini or Hanan Shmailawi. They are among the 23 Iraqi civilians alleged to have been killed by British troops since the end of hostilities. Seven cases are now being investigated by the Ministry of Defence, which has already paid out £15,375 in compensation.

Abdel Jabr Mousa was the headmaster of a Basra primary school. British soldiers came to the family house looking for a neighbour, and when they found a Kalashnikov kept for self- protection (it is not illegal in Iraq), Abdel and his son Bashar were arrested. Abdel's body was later retrieved from Basra hospital, bruised and bloodied, but the death certificate gave only "heart attack" as cause of death.

Baha Mousa - they are not related - was 26; he did night shifts at a hotel. Similarly, he was arrested during a raid. Fellow hotel workers described the beatings inflicted while they were in custody, and said the British troops ordered them to dance "like Michael Jackson". Baha's death certificate stated "cardiorespiratory arrest/asphyxia" and didn't refer to the "severe bruising" caused by an assault noted in an earlier British medical report. Baha has left two orphaned children, three and five.

The cases of the two Mousas appeared in a few newspapers earlier this month. Needless to say, they and the other Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by British forces have garnered a tiny fraction of the media coverage given over to the death of Sergeant Steve Roberts because of a shortage of body armour; a ratio of 87 articles on Roberts to 35 on the deaths of 23 Iraqi civilians. No matter that these stories are as tragic as that of Roberts: the attention span of media and public alike for the story of a housewife gunned down as she began to eat her evening meal or the confused 16-year-old hiding from a violent demonstration who ends up drowning in mysterious circumstances, is terrifyingly short. But with the first anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war on Saturday, we need an honest and independent reckoning of what has been done in our name.

--snip--

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1169399,00.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. Stressful times results in stressful consequences from the forces affected

Come, we send healing salve

[Disturbed]

2. Beating people to death.

Is this what Brit Troops are trained to do?

[Nihil]

3. No, for some it's simply a hobby.

Like every armed force in the world, the British Army has its share of
sadistic psychopaths. They are the ones that have to fight after they
get drunk in a bar, the ones who don't stop if their victim falls down
but carries on putting the boot in until the red rage passes, the ones
who know that they are on the side of strength and revel in that power.

As an article proved last year, that sort of person doesn't even have
to be male - just slightly less civilised than the rest of us.

The disadvantage is that such unthinking violence (regardless of the
circumstances) is precisely the sort of thing that is useful in an army
as very few heroes get their medals through making polite requests of
the enemy ...

The sad part is that sometimes such behaviour is not only tacitly
supported but encouraged as a means of getting results. An even sadder
thing is that sometimes innocent soldiers get dragged into this morass.

Nihil

[opihimoimoi]

4. Group therapy is highly recomended. It appears many Nations

need it.... including this one.

[jpgray]

5. And if the Brits are having this kind of problem...

You know it is more pronounced on our end. We are less skilled in peacekeeping, we are policing a more volatile area, and we have more soldiers on the ground.

But we won't hear a word.

:(