As if the torture, endless detentions, lack of rebuilding progress and the refusal to count Iraqi casualties weren’t enough harm to perpetrate on the Iraqi people, the US military has now added a new tactic in its so-called War on Terrorism: just starve Iraqis.
Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler said they had driven people out of insurgent strongholds that were about to be attacked by cutting supplies.
Mr Ziegler, a Swiss-born sociologist, said such tactics were in breach of international law.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad denied the allegations.
A spokesman for the US military says:
“It does not do relief supplies any good if you have them going into a firefight,” he said.
As the article notes: “The Geneva Conventions forbid depriving civilians of food and water. Cutting off food supply lines and destroying food stocks is also forbidden.”
Civilized World to US Military: You have to supply those civilians especially because they’re in the middle of a firefight. What right do you think you have to arbitrarily decided who eats and drinks and who doesn’t? The DoD has spent countless millions on hiring private contractors to move these supplies. It’s their job. What part of acting humanely don’t you get?
And, here’s what I want to know: was Harriet Miers in on whether these measures were legal or not? She is, after all, still the White House counsel and if the torture violations of the Geneva Conventions were discussed in the WH, you can be damn sure these starvation tactics were as well. Someone made the decision to violate those conventions again and, this time, it wasn’t just a “few bad apples” again either. This is a systemic disregard for international law that must end.
But…
Withholding food and water did such a bang-up job in depopulating New Orleans, its easy to see why they’d try it in Iraq too.
Nixon: Committed crimes in secret to maintain power
Bush II: Commits crimes openly to demonstrate power
Is it impeachment time yet?
(can we do it before we put George’s pet Miers on the SC?)
NOLA certainly did flash in my mind as I wrote about this. This administration’s actions in so many instances are beyond the pale. May those poll numbers keep dropping and may they all be frog-marched out of DC forever.
Catnip, I read this story and am very glad that you’ve done a diary on it. I recently read an article about how literally thousands of people in government have been forced out, demoted, and shoved aside to make way for the cronies and yes men (and women). I suspect there has been a similiar ‘quiet purge’ in the command structure of the military. If that is true, then you can assume that less competent people are in charge, from the generals on down through the entire command structure. Bush’s yes men are in charge. It is safe to assume that this starvation tactic was born at the top.
Now here is where some people get stuck in symantics of blame. I place the blame for the crimes of our military solely on the Commander in Chief and his cronies at the top. (Like Rumsfeld and Myers) Those bastards should all be rotting in a jail cell somewhere. The sheer arrogance of them is breathtaking. We are very lucky that the Bush regime is beginning to fall apart. I truely believe that left on their own, Bush and his corrupt administration and military would try to set up a police state. Look at Bush’s ramblings on using the military to quarantine sections of the country! WTF was that about if not laying the base for a police state? I’ve thought about this… a lot. They are being brought down not a moment too soon. The question is, will it be in time?
I agree with everything you have said, Nag! I try hard not to hate anyone, but on a daily basis, it is getting harder to remain this way with this administration.
I just wished we could find a way to bring them all down and hard too.
This is not a good thing to have the world to look upon and find us compassionate ppl.
This administration wants to keep thins wrong and doing things that they know will keep the feces stirred. This then keeps the enviorment they way they need to stay…I am really nausated by all of this.
No, you can’t blame Bush for everything. Starving people, torturing people, raping people, killing people for no reason….that has to stop at every level not just Bush’s. As long as you just blame the head people, the foot soldiers on the ground, many of whom are more than willing particiipants continue to do these crimes. They are too blame to. But I think the punishment should be resevered for the leaders, but the blames is everyones, including all of the USA>
Here’s my take on pointing fingers, Stu. You said:
“…the foot soldiers on the ground, many of whom are more than willing particiipants…”
That may very well be true, but it is also true that many of those same foot soldiers are not very willing participants, who are coming home and marching, or blogging, or speaking out against the war in their own way. So many of those poor souls will suffer from such illnesses as PTSD for the rest of their lives. Whose fault is that? The soldiers? The American people? No, it’s the people who give the first orders, the ones at the top. They deserve all the attention drawn to their failings, their crimes. They deserve to be in condemned by history as craven and morally bereft war criminals. The soldiers who are fighting this war will have to live with it for the rest of their lives. If there is evidence enough to convict individuals of war crimes, then so be it.
Other than that, who am I to accuse? When you spread the blame on all the soldiers and all of the USA you are letting the Bush crime family off the hook and that I absolutely do not agree with. All blame should be focused like a laser on those who planned it, then lied about it, then screwed it up royally. Throw them out of power and then throw them in jail. THEN go ahead and have the philosophical discussions about mob mentality and how far down the food chain the blame goes… I still probably won’t be part of that conversation.
you cannot so easily separate out those in authority and those enacting it. I really think people need to think on
this a bit more, and redigest it.
We know through many famous studies such as the one above, that the majority of humans will obey orders from an authority, even when they know it is harming others. IOW, we are all conditioned to obey, we are all too readyt to dehumanise others, and there’s a little sadist hiding in most of us.
Now translate that fact into a military environment; where the normal percentage of people who would refuse orders has been significantly reduced through both self-selection and a highly structured and disciplined and punitive system.
We all look at things like the Stanford experiment, and secretly, subconciously tell ourselves that we’d be one of the ones to refuse the order. The reality is that most of us probably wouldn’t. It still doesn’t excuse our actions on jot.
See…you like many others get exicted and exaggerate what I have said.
You said: “When you spread the blame on all the soldiers” …
I said many of whom…not all. That’s observable, not an opinion. Now, whether it is 40- 50 90 or 10% I did not say. But many is what we have seen with our own eyes. When GROUPS of people, not INDIVIDUALS participate and actually record their rapes and torture, then we can say that it is accepted practice among many.
There has to be a culture or permission that allows this to happen from the people who participate, those who only watched to those who walked by, felt disgust but said nothing and on and on. You don’t have GROUPS of people doing these things with out the support of a much much larger community.
You know I said, that I didn’t want these soldiers to be punished, just their superiors, but they deserve to be blamed for what they are doing, and called the scum that they are.
THis is no fantasy.
Just a reminder, Stu: we already fought this war at BT. I don’t think we need to do it again one week later.
but I don’t see how Stu Piddy stating an opinion needs a response like this. It will only devolve into another acrimonious discussion if we let it. People can choose to agree to disagree and move on, without forcing someone silent. Why is it ok for those who think that the top brass & the political leaders should shoulder be the sole target to be allowed to post as such without a ‘warning’ of where it might lead, but the other view cannot?
I sincerely doubt you intended it, but your post is almost threatening – “don’t go there or else”.
I sincerely doubt you intended it, but your post is almost threatening – “don’t go there or else”.
It wasn’t meant that way. If I were to write what I hoped people would read between the lines it would say this: we covered this so extensively last week and many people are very weary of the topic, so I hope this isn’t meant to ignite that storm again.
Don’t ever get weary of the topic.
Stu, you may think you have a point. I do not know. All I know is I am not willing to accept that ALL are guilty. I think I know one thing about being a military person. I do know those who are in the line of giving orders have to be explicit on giving them to subordinates, otherwise they are leaving themselves wide open for court-martial later on. This is a given. We must find out who is giving these orders and then go after them. It seems to be a coordinated effort to do this ghastly deed against humanity. There are international laws to be followed here, especially since we are the occuping force here. When, and if, those who do this thing, are found out for doing this, then they will have to testify in their own defense. I do not know the law that well, but it makes sense to me.
And, BTW, I will not get into that fight again. It took me a week to get over that haunting I have gotten, to get over with from last week!!!!!!!!….I simply will not go thru it again!!!!! Is that clear. YOu are entitled to your opinion, and so do I.
except in his post topic -which we all use as a shorthand – Stu Piddy didn’t state that all soldiers are guilty. How I see SP’s post is pointing out that yes, the top leaders are most culpable, but it doesn’t expunge the individual culpability of rank and file soldiers, and all those in between. Which has been demonstrated to be legal fact since World War 2, so it’s hardly an ‘extreme’ position, albeit perhaps not as clearly worded as it could be.
Now, if Stu Piddy comes back and clarifies that s/he did indeed mean ALL soldiers, I’ll belt up.
this comes from Stu–“But I think the punishment should be resevered for the leaders, but the blames is everyones, including all of the USA> “
I think when he accounts for everyones [and that includes me and you] that also includes all the soldiers as well.
I know I am not everyone as well as most of the soldiers/marines there.
Since Bush is so damn happy being CiC, then he has the charge of being one to take the blame for everything done in America’s name. Dont you see!!??
If someone in his administration is dong things he does not like, then it is responsibility to fire that person….and I refer to rummy for instance….
PS: starving and such is a tatcic….used to get a group of ppl to do something the starver wants to happen…That tatic has to be an order..not just happenstance…
Well, whether you like it or not. We are all going to recieve the blame. Perhaps the Blame, the punishement should be in reverse order. the least culpable or the soldiers and the most culpable may be the American public who keeps supporting the soldiers which in my view is nothing more than supporting the rape of a nation. Quit supporting the troops, I say. I say rescue the troops, don’t support them.
But that’s cute Brenda, the idea that I said all Americans and you choose to use that as an accussation of your culpablility.
That’s the problems Americans don’t want to admit that the troops and doing vile things in Iraq because it means that we those back home have to admit that we also are vile for allowing it. We all want to blame Daddy.
When you can stop emotionally viewing Bush as your father, you may be able to see more clearly.
I am disgusted with America and the Troops in Iraq. I am ashamed to be an American. This is a shameful country and if you travel outside of it and you can get people in other countries to talk they will tell you how absolutely aghast they are at you and your country.
Even if you explain that you don’t agree with the US policies, you will not be trusted entirely….there will be for many decades now a distrust of all Americans as there was and still lingers a distrust of Germans.
This is very profound stuff.
Get those troops out of there now and quit making excuses. When you can start blaming them too, things will happen very quickly and no one will want them in there. As longs as you go on and on about how they are just doing their job and how brave they are …you are condeminng them to multiple tours of duty.
Well, not ALL foreigners feel that way about individual American’s… yes, SOME will, but not ALL. People are smarter than you give them credit for and can understand the nuance that there are ALOT of American’s who feel the same way they do about the Bush Administration, the Religious Right, the neocons, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, etc. People do read and know that half of the country voted for Kerry and Gore won the election… now foreigners may not be able to comprehend why the US doesn’t have its own Orange Revolution, but they won’t mistrust individual American’s on sight… they’ll get to know them first.
Of course, I’m not talking about the whole world mind you, I’m sure the ME has a different take on it.
I’m married to an American and live in Canada who has been quite vocal about the disaster going on down south and my hub has not experienced any kind of animosity or mistrust just because of where he was born… and as for people not trusting the Germans anymore, well that’s just silly, the only people who hate the Germans right now are the American’s and that’s because they actually LEARNED from their history and said no to Iraq.
That’s the problems Americans don’t want to admit that the troops and doing vile things in Iraq because it means that we those back home have to admit that we also are vile for allowing it. We all want to blame Daddy.
When you can stop emotionally viewing Bush as your father, you may be able to see more clearly.
That is exactly why I reminded you that we already covered this track extensively. What purpose does it serve to start attacking and inciting individual members here again, Stu?
Look. I don’t care. Fine. You began the personalizing thing.
You can try to control, to regulate responses. But I will not respond to that… I am all for everybody saying whatever they want however they want, whenever they want.
You don’t have to think that way if you don’t want to though.
Isn’t the title of your diary and indictment of a least part of the military?
I am just tired the ALL label being used, for one thing.
Not unlike torture and crimes against humanity themselves.
Certainly, any person who is incapable of distinguishing right and wrong, who lacks the capacity to decide for him or herself what to do when ordered to commit a crime, cross a street, or wait at the crosswalk until the big speeding truck passes cannot at least ethically, be held responsible for their actions by any judicial body.
In fact the US has often found itself criticized for holding to account in criminal courts individuals who demonstrate in one way or another, impaired capacity.
I would take it a step further and ask whether the individual has ever been taught right from wrong. I have on several occasions expressed my view that Lynddie England’s best defense would be the simple explanation given to the Australian paper by one of the townsfolk “That’s the way girls like Lynddie was raised.”
They go on turkey shoots, the lady explained, and in Iraq, well, they hunt Iraqis. People of different ethnicities are not considered quite human.
As has been made plain in recent weeks, this view is neither limited to Lynddie’s little town, nor Iraqis.
So while certainly anyone with the capacity to make decisions for himself is responsible for them, whether those decisions involve which soap to buy or whether to exterminate other human beings on command, maybe the more pertinent question, at least for the world, and those Americans similarly at risk, is how to best protect ourselves from people who do not believe we are human.
Once the beasts are disarmed and contained there will be ample time to sort out which ones made conscious choices and which ones are not capable of making them.
Because no matter how much we may wish to argue the point, they are still shooting.
So maybe we could send all the rations that Britain sent to New Orleans to Iraq?
Seeing as they don’t seem to be ‘fit’ for Ammurkan consumpton.
JEEBUS on a pogo stick.What can be screwed up next?
Film at 11.