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By Robert Parry (about the author)
Become a Fan (30 fans) -- Page 3 of 4 page(s)
"But when you roll a grenade in a room through the crack in the door, that's not positive identification, that's taking a chance on anything that could be behind that door," Pelley said.
"Well, that's what we do. That's how our training goes," Wuterich said.
Eight Marines were initially charged in the Haditha case, but six cases were dropped, one Marine was acquitted, and Wuterich's case has been delayed by legal skirmishing. As in earlier cases, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, courts martial have mostly focused on rank-and-file soldiers.
The lack of high-level accountability appears to stem from the fact that the key instigators of both the illegal invasion of Iraq and the harsh tactics employed in the "global war on terror" were former President Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials. President Barack Obama has made clear he doesn't want Bush and his top aides punished.
Yet, not only did Bush order an aggressive war "" what World War II's Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" "" but Bush pumped U.S. troops full of false propaganda by linking Iraq with the 9/11 attacks.
Bush's subliminal connections between the Iraq War and 9/11 continued years after U.S. intelligence dismissed any linkage. For instance, on June 18, 2005, more than two years into the Iraq War, Bush justified the invasion by telling the American people that "we went to war because we were attacked" on 9/11.
Little wonder that a poll of 944 U.S. military personnel in Iraq "" taken in January and February 2006 "" found that 85 percent believed the U.S. mission in Iraq was mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks." Seventy-seven percent said a chief war goal was "to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaeda in Iraq."
Bush's rhetorical excesses had the predictable effect of turning loose a revenge-seeking and heavily armed U.S. military force on the Iraqi population.
"Salvador Option'
By early 2005, with the Iraqi insurgency growing, an increasingly frustrated Bush administration also debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived leftists who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early 1980s.
According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan administration as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.
"Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been a success "" despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.
The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures in the Central American operations of the 1980s, such as Elliott Abrams, who became an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security Council.
In the Iraqi-sniper case, Army sniper Sandoval admitted killing an Iraqi man near the town of Iskandariya on April 27, 2007, after a skirmish with insurgents. Sandoval testified that his team leader, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, ordered him to kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of being an insurgent posing as a farmer.
The second killing occurred on May 11, 2007, when a man walked into a concealed location where Sandoval, Hensley and other snipers were hiding. After the Iraqi was detained, another sniper, Sgt. Evan Vela, was ordered to shoot the man in the head by Hensley and did so, according to Vela's testimony at Sandoval's court martial.
Sandoval and Hensley were acquitted of murder charges because a military jury concluded that their actions were within the rules of engagement. (Like Sandoval, Hensley was convicted of lesser charges relating to planting evidence.) But Vela was convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian and planting evidence on the body, leading to a 10-year prison sentence.
Become a Fan (30 fans) -- Page 3 of 4 page(s)
"Well, that's what we do. That's how our training goes," Wuterich said.
Eight Marines were initially charged in the Haditha case, but six cases were dropped, one Marine was acquitted, and Wuterich's case has been delayed by legal skirmishing. As in earlier cases, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, courts martial have mostly focused on rank-and-file soldiers.
The lack of high-level accountability appears to stem from the fact that the key instigators of both the illegal invasion of Iraq and the harsh tactics employed in the "global war on terror" were former President Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials. President Barack Obama has made clear he doesn't want Bush and his top aides punished.
Yet, not only did Bush order an aggressive war "" what World War II's Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" "" but Bush pumped U.S. troops full of false propaganda by linking Iraq with the 9/11 attacks.
Bush's subliminal connections between the Iraq War and 9/11 continued years after U.S. intelligence dismissed any linkage. For instance, on June 18, 2005, more than two years into the Iraq War, Bush justified the invasion by telling the American people that "we went to war because we were attacked" on 9/11.
Little wonder that a poll of 944 U.S. military personnel in Iraq "" taken in January and February 2006 "" found that 85 percent believed the U.S. mission in Iraq was mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks." Seventy-seven percent said a chief war goal was "to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaeda in Iraq."
Bush's rhetorical excesses had the predictable effect of turning loose a revenge-seeking and heavily armed U.S. military force on the Iraqi population.
"Salvador Option'
By early 2005, with the Iraqi insurgency growing, an increasingly frustrated Bush administration also debated a "Salvador option" for Iraq, an apparent reference to the "death squad" operations that decimated the ranks of perceived leftists who were opposed to El Salvador's right-wing military junta in the early 1980s.
According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the adoption of that brutal "still-secret strategy" of the Reagan administration as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.
"Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been a success "" despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.
The magazine also noted that many of Bush's advisers were leading figures in the Central American operations of the 1980s, such as Elliott Abrams, who became an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security Council.
In the Iraqi-sniper case, Army sniper Sandoval admitted killing an Iraqi man near the town of Iskandariya on April 27, 2007, after a skirmish with insurgents. Sandoval testified that his team leader, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, ordered him to kill a man cutting grass with a rusty scythe because he was suspected of being an insurgent posing as a farmer.
The second killing occurred on May 11, 2007, when a man walked into a concealed location where Sandoval, Hensley and other snipers were hiding. After the Iraqi was detained, another sniper, Sgt. Evan Vela, was ordered to shoot the man in the head by Hensley and did so, according to Vela's testimony at Sandoval's court martial.
Sandoval and Hensley were acquitted of murder charges because a military jury concluded that their actions were within the rules of engagement. (Like Sandoval, Hensley was convicted of lesser charges relating to planting evidence.) But Vela was convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian and planting evidence on the body, leading to a 10-year prison sentence.
http://www.consortiumnews.com
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at more...)
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