Click the picture for a bigger version.

I am very much anti-war, but I’m loathe to be seen as a bandwagon jumper and in no way want to be associated with the small minority of anti-war campaigners (let’s call them The Anti War Glee Club) who, in reality, are revelling in the disaster in Iraq as they can use it to further their own domestic agenda - but these concerns should not stop me from commenting on certain things that make me just plain, bloody furious.

Call me an American basher if you want but let me clarify this - I am an American Government Policy basher if anything.

The scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay (should) shame the US Government but the recent reports of civilan ‘executions’ by American forces in Ishaqi and Haditha are incredible beyond belief.

And the US Military now state that Ishaqi is beyond belief because they have carried out a full investigation into the civilian deaths in this town and have cleared their forces of any wrongdoing.
The Pentagon report states that US forces used appropriate force in dealing with the Ishaqi incident.

“The investigation revealed the ground force commander, while capturing and killing terrorists, operated in accordance with the rules of engagement governing our combat forces in Iraq,”

Rules of engagement - Let’s get this clarified :

“As the enemy fire persisted, the ground force commander appropriately reacted by incrementally escalating the use of force from small arms fire to rotary wing aviation, and then to close air support, ultimately eliminating the threat,”

I wonder what ‘close air support’ can accomplish ? - We get a hint a little further into the report :

“The investigating officer concluded that possibly up to nine collateral deaths resulted from this engagement, but could not determine the precise number due to collapsed walls and heavy debris,”

Well, I’m glad that everything is now clear.

Even if you believe that families were not executed and an airstrike was called up to destroy the evidence as The Pentagon report denies, then the least you can summise about ‘appropriate force’, ‘rules of engagement’ or US Military tactics is that they do not seem to take into account the innocents caught up in the conflict.

Or should I say Iraqi men, women and children - or maybe Afghan men, women and children - killed in a long range air strike a few months ago. (Don’t worry they got a bad guy as well.)

Watch CSI ?, Law & Order ?, Starsky & Hutch ?, NYPD Blue ?, Hill Street Blues ?

When there was a hostage situation or innocent civilains were caught up in a gunfight, can you remember someone phoning up and calling for bomb to be dropped on the trailer, brownstone or condo that the bad guy was holed up in - just so they could get the baddie ?
And in any Die Hard film, when did John McClane and those he was trying to save get blown to Kingdom Come by the cops - just so they could get the baddie ?

And in real life in The U.S. when is it acceptable reduce buildings to rubble and eliminate whole families who get in the way in order to kill the villain ?

There would be very little left of many major U.S. cities if this was the case - wastelands of bricks, blood, stone, skulls, mortar and mortar rounds.

Can you imagine the U.S. Government sanctioning ‘acceptable force’ Iraqi-style in downtown Las Vegas ?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 11:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.