US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated (Article 55 Violation)

[Nambe]

This article first appeared in The Daily Star

United States occupation forces in Iraq are refusing to treat wounded and sick Iraqis if their injuries are not directly caused by the United States. This shocking behavior is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.---

According to the BBC, a spokesman for US Central Command in Baghdad said that, because the dump was Iraqi, not American, US forces in the area were not taking responsibility for caring for the wounded.

But the United States is responsible at every level. First and foremost, as the occupying power, the US is supposed to provide security for Iraq's people. The fact that Iraqi civilians can walk into abandoned Iraqi Army stores shows that the US is dismally failing to do that. A few weeks ago, Iraqi villagers became ill after taking radioactive canisters from a known Iraqi nuclear site that US forces had failed to secure.

Second, the US is legally and morally obliged to render assistance to the injured. Article 16 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: "The wounded and sick, as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object of particular protection and respect." Article 55 states: "To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate." ---

[DUreader]

1. After reading this, I am getting offline for a while.

Must decompress now, before my head explodes.

[enough]

2. War Crimes

Crimes within crimes within crimes .........

[Spazito]

3. Dispicable and Indictable!

If true, this is disgusting and heartbreaking. :(

[underpants]

4. Winning over hearts and minds

Not that's what I call PLANNING!

[lumpy]

5. This is to be expected

with inept military leadership and uneducated cannon fodder running the post war show.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. I want to believe this isn't true. . .. .

. . . because I want to believe that the "brave men and women" of our armed forces, the ones we're supposedly supporting and asking that they be brought home, are above this kind of shit.

I want to believe that the ordinary man or woman in the uniform of the United States military is, deep down inside, a decent human being who does in fact care about other human beings, even if they speak a different language or worship a different god.

I want to believe my fellow Americans, the ordinary folks who joined the military because they saw it as a path to opportunity, to college funding, to a decent career out of poverty, that these folks would not let burned children suffer.

I want to believe a physician, whether military or civilian, believes in saving lives and relieving pain more than anything else. Maybe I've seen too many episodes of M*A*S*H, where Hawkeye and Trapper and Charles and B.J. operated on North Koreans as well as Americans and Canadians and whatever other young and old bodies were brought in.

I don't want to believe Americans are this callous, this cruel, this soulless.

I don't want to believe America is, either.

Peace,

Tansy Gold, who hates the bushnazis more and more and more every minute

[bvar22]

7. We don't need no steeeenking Geneva Convention!

Tansy_Gold, I'm with you:
"I want to believe that the ordinary man or woman in the uniform of the United States military is, deep down inside, a decent human being..."

I do believe that the front line grunts are decent.

The decision to NOT TREAT Iraqis is a policy decision made by theatre commanders. Those are the guys I want to see in the docks at the War Crimes Tribunals.

[atreides1]

9. What You Say Has Merit

But it's not the commanders that are being shot at, they have the best security, they have more then 2 liters of water a day, they probably don't eat MRE's, and they can always head to Kuwait or Qatar
for the weekend.

A while I too believe that MOST of the front line grunts are decent,
I don't feel that they all are. And while they are mostly decent human beings, they have been indoctrinated with the belief that the
Iraqis are not human. This administration, and the military chain of command have dehumanized the Iraqi fighters, unfortunately once you start this process it's very difficult to differentiate between the civilians and the fighters. Remember they all look alike.

And you will never see anyone charged with War Crimes, because this
adminstration has been making deals to get all US military personnel
off the hook. So don't expect justice.

[arcane1]

8. THIS is why we are EXEMPT from WAR CRIMES PROSECUTION

and I cannot believe ANY country would willingly grant us such a monsterous priviledge... but many of them did...

:grr:

[qb]

10. The Bushies used extortion to get the votes.

Threatening to eliminate all financial aid to countries already struggling in this miserable economy.

[indepat]

11. Say it isn't so, say it isn't so. Please tell me my country would never

be guilty of such outrageous crimes.