Some Shiites are apparently carrying out sectarian, political murders under the cover of law.
The Baghdad morgue reports that dozens
of bodies arrive at the same time on a weekly basis, including scores
of corpses with wrists bound by police handcuffs.
You might think the word "death squads" is a bit harsh.
But U.S. military advisors in Iraq say
the term is apt, and the Interior Ministry's inspector general concurs
that extrajudicial killings are being carried out by ministry forces.
Death squads.
And yet Bush will still look you in the eye and tell you that the progress of democracy in Iraq is "amazing."
Speaks for itself.
Still, one last aside. To those who repeat the current GOP spin that opponents of the war are
motivated by a hatred of Bush or a desire to see America disgraced, I
would like to respond:
I can speak for no one else, but it seems obvious to me that it is the
war which disgraces America. It is the deaths of tens of thousands of
innocent people which disgraces America. It is torture which disgraces
America. It is imprisonment without trial which disgraces America. It
is the use of chemical weapons which disgraces America. It is disdain
for international law, the use of military power as a first resort, the
intentional confusion of the Iraqi people with terrorists thousands of
miles away in Afghanistan, and
the corruption of the very word "democracy" which all disgrace America.
As an opponent of the war, I am trying to stop my country from being disgraced any further.
As to hatred, yes, I will confess: I hate the actions of everyone
involved -- including Bush and his entire team, who are obviously most
responsible, but also including plenty of Democrats (Biden, Lieberman,
Clinton, etc.) -- in creating the current fiasco. My anger and disgust extends even more intensely to the actions of murderous extremists on all sides -- like, say, these death squads, for example -- but as they are not elected officials representing and theoretically accountable to the very public which reads this blog, I rarely go into much detail on the point.
I would also eagerly forgive anyone able to admit that what they have done is wrong. I forgive John Murtha. I forgive Walter Jones.
I forgive John Edwards. Forgiveness is, after all, one of the most important things we can offer.
I could be wrong, but I also believe the majority of humanity would agree.
UPDATE: I should add that since I originally wrote this, John Pike of the FAS, a group this site links to and which I genuinely respect the vast majority of the time, wrote this op-ed which points out that while the U.S. admits using white phosphorous in Fallujah to burn other human beings alive, there was no real foul.
Why? Since the substance was launched from artillery and not dropped from an airplane, it is not technically banned, and the U.S. hasn't signed the treaty anyway, so there. Airplane bad. Artillery good.
I'm sure this must be a comforting last thought as one's skin peels and burns away: "at least this was not dropped from an airplane, nor used by a signatory to international conventions, and while I am a civilian, I find myself foolishly adjacent to a military target, namely, about half of the entire city at one point or another."
Ahh. Isn't that better?
Why, it would seem churlish to complain.
Pike also points out that the particular civilians in the now-famous Italian documentary which kick-started the controversy don't look like WP victims. Nope. They're just dead civilians.
No problem, then. I guess.
Even though the U.S. admits it used WP in a way which endangered any civilians trapped in the area, I guess we can ignore these 70+ separate news stories indicating a minimum of hundreds of civilian deaths.
The Red Cross estimate, which they called "likely to be too low" was 800 civilian deaths. This same article, posted a year ago, includes this (emphasis added):
The Red Cross official said they had received several reports from refugees that the military had dropped cluster bombs in Fallujah, and used a phosphorous weapon that caused severe burns.
Oops.
Pike seems to be arguing that if the dead civilians in the documentary weren't killed by WP, then none of them could have been, in the same way that not pulling a white sock out of the drawer on the first try means there are no white socks anywhere in the drawer.
This is obviously logical reasoning.
So, in the interest of accuracy, I admit that Pike -- whom, I emphasize, I respect and agree with the vast majority of the time, current dour sarcasm aside -- is right on the specific definition. I probably should have used the phrase "horrific incendiary chemical fired in a way likely to have mutilated the screaming bodies at least some innocent civilians, even if it's not strictly defined as a chemical weapon."
I stand corrected.
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