Robert Fisk: The shaming of America

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:



As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It's always tempting to avoid a story by saying "nothing new". The "old story" idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it's true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The "evidence" of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times's Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-shaming-of-america-2115111.html

[Luminous Animal]

1. We are so guilty.

[Ticonderoga]

24. No it wasn't "we"

It was "them", the War Criminals who stole the election of 2,000. It was Obama and Holder who failed in their duty to prosecute, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, to honor their oaths of office. It wasn't "us". But I don't feel any better after having said that.

[Bragi]

34. If we fail to act now, it's "we"

The evidence of war crimes is no longer theoretical. It is right before our eyes.

Accordingly, if the perpetrators are not brought to justice by the Obama administration, and by other governments that participated in this horror show, then yes, "we" are all guilty.

[glitch]

2. Robert Fisk gets it: becoming craven torturers and war criminals is OUR SHAME.

Something the fearful ignorati will never understand.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. Kick

As a nation, we own this.

[Martin Eden]

10. A man is undergoing a psychological examination.

The psychiatrist says "Imagine you're walking across a desert, and when you crest the rise of a sand dune you see before you a huge submarine in the middle of that desert. What would you do?"

The man thinks about that for a few moments, and replies "I'd throw a snowball at it."

"Hmmm, very intersting," the psychiatrist muses. "And where would you get a snowball in a desert?"

"The same place you got the submarine" replied the man.

[PDJane]

4. I read Fisk's writings on this.

I have also read Gwynne Dyer and a host of others. The picture I got was of a slap-happy, trigger-happy, abusive force...undisciplined and reckless and stupid.

I wonder: had Americans in this country known, would it have been different.

[swilton]

19. Americans are ignorant

and this has nothing to do with their level of education.

[sabrina 1]

5. Fisk, one of the best investigative journalists and war correspondensts

in the world. You would think such a person would be invited to speak about what he actually saw, on the ground, in Iraq. The fact that only Fox News liars are allowed to speak to the American people, tells you how frightened they are that the truth will come out.

I have been following his work on these crimes since they started. He was one of the first to report on the torture in Abu Ghraib, also one of the first to report on the devastation on the civilian population by Drone attacks. I hope soon Drones will be outlawed as would anyone who has read or witnessed what they do, and in such a cowardly way. Not to mention how easy it is to have 'informers' use them to get rid of people they want killed, which happens all the time.

Thank YOU Robert Fisk who kept a light shining on the truth from the start. I remember rightwingers refusing to read his work whenever I posted it for them, calling it 'propaganda' and him a 'traitor', never mind that he is not an American.

History will not deal well with America's war crimes nor with those who supported them. Because it will not be written by just us.

[creon]

12. Fisk

Fisk is the best in the ME.

He is trusted by Arabs to be truthful.

[Martin Eden]

6. I am ashamed.

I marched in the streets to protest the invasion of Iraq before we invaded. I wrote letters to the editor. I explained to family and friends why this was a big mistake and very, very wrong.

But when the President of the United States launched an unprovoked war on the basis of lies it was done in my name as well as yours. America did this, and I am an American.

And I am ashamed.

[ixion]

7. We've crossed a line, and few seem to realize it

This will go down in history as a very dark, disturbed period in US History.

[WinkyDink]

14. Not in the Texas-approved text-books.

[ixion]

15. Eventually, Texas will dumb their education system down to the point where they can no longer write

then they'll have to outsource textbooks. :)

[mudplanet]

18. They already outsource them. They're working on eliminating literacy entirely.

Just let the fundamentalist preachers tell our kids what they need to know.

[defendandprotect]

23. Any time rightwing rises is a "dark, disturbed period" in history --!!

[flyarm]

8. K&R..I am ashamed to call myself American ..and yet still nothing is done about the fucking

criminals ..in or by either party..

When they do nothing to hold the criminals accountable..they are complicit in the crimes..they too are guilty and criminals!

What a disgrace my country is!

As far as I am concerned..anyone who wanted to know the truth, did know the truth..the truth was not hard to find..unfortunately too many in this country claimed to be patriots by Cheering a war of lies and the murder of innocent human lives! The blood of the dead is on many people's hands! They are the ones who should have shame..but probably never will!

[bvar22]

9. One of Obama's most enduring legacies will be...

...turning a blind eye to these atrocities.

[Angry Dragon]

11. He needs to turn around and do the right thing

the bush administration needs to be arrested and tried for war crimes and treason

[Mosaic]

25. That can't be stressed enough

None of this "go forward" whitewash crap in m$m and government.

[G_j]

16. yes it will nt

[Ticonderoga]

27. By denying justice, Obama has justified

the crimes of the bush cabal. This specifically is why I believe he will be a one-term failure. I will not vote for this pseudo progressive again. There is no left vs. right in this country. There is only the haves vs. the have nots. People need to wake up.

[amyrose2712]

13. +1 nt

[creon]

17. The Independent

This newspaper is one of the several foreign papers that I read on a regular basis. "Truth is the First casuality of war" is a book wriiten years ago by Phillip Knightly. Not only do these cries occur in war - nearly every war - these murders are also hidden from view.

Americans are not immunized from committing murder in war. American soldiers have done this sort of thing in all the wars the uSA has fought.

If a country does not want to committ murder in war: do not wage war. becuse soldiers of your own nationality will do it. As surely as night follows day.

[laughingliberal]

20. K & R nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. The Arabs knew? I thought we all knew.

[defendandprotect]

22. Enough info has gotten out that average person should have known. .. however,

CONGRESS certainly has known and we elect them to keep track of what's going on --

and to STOP it when necessary -- like this stuff and TORTURE, in general!!

Where was military -- torture is against military rules!

Obviously, right wing is subverting government and military -- and the few are in control

of the many again!! A constant occurrence we have never solved!!

[Ticonderoga]

28. Where was the military you ask, well they were busy torturing prisoners

themselves under rummy's orders until they were exposed at abu ghraib prison, and after that they contracted the work out to blackwater. It,s all there if you look for the truth. Military rules seem to only apply to the pawns in their games, The Soldiers under their command.

[defendandprotect]

29. Agree .....

but as much as the corrupt lawyers changed rules/regulations for the White House

re torture -- STILL the military had rules against torture that were also ignored.

Rumsfeld and Cheney are probably the two worse things to happen since Hitler!

[bertman]

26. KICK and REC. And the Obama administration is more worried about the

legal ramifications of not following the DADT law than they are about our flagrant ongoing abuse and violation of our Constitution and every law relating to War Crimes. Disgusting.

[defendandprotect]

30. Obama should be petitioning Congress + SC to overturn DADT on basis of prejudice... inequality ...

Human Rights!

Agree -- "disgusting" -- !!

[felix_numinous]

31. The path to recovery in this country

starts with dealing with the massive corruption in the Pentagon, banks, and following all the secret international money. To skip this vital step is cultural suicide, because these psychotic groups of people are the reason this country is in the dire straits we are in now. We have to dig out the corrupt roots, or the disease will spread further.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. The reason there are no investigations is that both parties were/are complicit in the crimes.

[G_j]

33. kick

[Bragi]

35. The real impact is this: the high road for America is gone for good

After Iraq, there is no high road rationale left for America's future imperial wars.

In the next war, the American administration won't even pretend to be conducting warfare according to international norms. They may soon even drop that polite myth in Afghanistan.

This will only be modestly controversial in the U.S, but the vast majority of Americans probably now approve of lawless war, as long as they think America is winning it.