- "I am surprised that the forces are not using air-lifting
C-130 airplanes to avoid ground transportation, which is costing us about
a hundred soldiers every month," said commanding Colonel John Jumpier
of the US Air Force during a press conference in December. About 2,000
military convoys must use the Iraqi highways to supply the spread-out US
forces with water, food, fuel and other essential supplies. Jumpier said,
"It will not be efficient to serve our troops, but it's a chance to
save some lives." He added, "I know that there will be an increase
in the chances of getting these slow and low altitude flying C-130's shot
down, but it's a risk that we should take."
-
- A first look at this statement and one would conclude,
correctly, that it is a very dangerous situation on the ground for US occupying
forces. Their lack of control inside the cities of Iraq is now matched
by their lack of control over the highways between them. When US military
leaders have to decide which deadly option to choose from, it reflects
a tone of despair where the safety of the troops is no longer an important
issue. No one is able to define the mission of the troops in Iraq, or for
how long this mission will last. No one at all, including George W. Bush,
can explain the US strategy in Iraq. This is because there is no strategy.
With the Iraqi resistance raging, it is not clear why the US is occupying
this country and why the US is so willing to sacrifice its soldiers there.
-
- While news sources are divided between either concealing
or exaggerating the number of those killed in Iraq, other important statistics
about US soldiers are forgotten. These statistics give a shocking picture
about the truth of what is happening in Iraq. For example, CBS's 60 Minutes
reported last fall that 300 soldiers migrated to Canada when they received
orders to join their units heading to Iraq. 60 Minutes went on to say that
5,500 US soldiers had deserted for fear of being killed in Iraq. Some refused
to join units leaving for Iraq, but most of them escaped after arriving
in Iraq by fleeing to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.
As one soldier stated: "They deceived us when they described our mission
to Iraq as a walk in the park." He added: "I took off so that
they won't write on my grave, Deceived Dead GI in Iraq."
-
- Smuggling American GI's is a booming business in Iraq
these days. For $1,000 and his/her weapon and uniform, any US soldier can
get him or herself out of Iraq through Kurdistan. Last April, a female
US soldier was captured by the Kurds, allies of the US, dressed like a
Kurdish woman with a face veil, attempting to cross into Turkey.
-
- According to the New York Times, a Pentagon study revealed
that one in every six soldiers who served in Iraq requires immediate psychological
treatment. Over a million soldiers have served in Iraq and Afghanistan
in the last two years. Steven Robinson, a NY Times military expert, believes
that the number needing treatment could jump from one to three soldiers
in every six. "There is a train loaded with people who need help that
will be coming to town for the next thirty five years," said Robinson.
-
- These figures are the worst for the US since the Vietnam
War. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was supposed to be short and swift.
Soldiers were promised that it would be an easy victory and that they would
be home in time for the summer of 2003. Instead, urban fighting like that
in the city of Fallujah last November, which provided unlimited possibilities
for resistance hideouts, booby-trapped houses, and roads full of roadside
bombs, put US soldiers in the position of having to live every single minute
of the day in fear of an attack. In addition, seeing Iraqis and not being
able to distinguish who is a friend and who is an enemy causes severe anxiety
to soldiers. Paul Raykhouve, commander of a Florida National Guard platoon
who served in Iraq four teen months, said: "The enemy is everywhere,
in every street, looking at you from every window, in every alley. One
cannot think straight because of nerve-wracking fear."
-
- Frightened troops lacking both certainty about their
mission and a strong conviction about what they are doing often end up
committing war crimes, such as killing prisoners or injured people. They
see in these crimes an opportunity to get even with their enemy. Racism
combines with fear to make this killing possible. It then becomes important
to win acceptance among other soldiers to justify the crimes. The poor
training and poor education of these soldiers also stands in the way of
reason and critical thinking. They learn to copy existing models of behavior,
without a code of ethics or outside authority to prevent violations of
rules of warfare. Even those soldiers who are not convinced that it is
okay to commit war crimes find it hard to resist.
-
- Both the political and military leadership of the US
forces are directly responsible for providing a large -scale coverup of
these crimes. Soldiers are subjected to an emotional extortion known as
"Uniform Code of Loyalty and Secrecy." Furthermore, the political
strength of the US is used to provide immunity for these soldiers from
an international war crimes tribunal. This leads to normalizing the criminal
behavior of servicemen, who know they can act with impunity.
-
- Caught in frenzy of mass killing, most soldiers develop
psychological stress and mental trauma as a result of serving in Iraq.
This stress, predictably, has been taken out on defenseless Iraqi civilians.
Many Iraqis are killed everyday simply because US soldiers suspected that
they were resistance members. The horrific stories about US soldiers executing
wounded Iraqis or sexually assaulting Iraqi prisoners reveal the severe
psychological conditions that US troops are living under.
-
- Upon finishing service in Iraq, these soldiers will no
longer have Iraqis to murder at will. The weapons they were trained to
use will be left behind. These two things -- without their knowing it --
had become important in their lives. Without them their return to US society,
where there is little social support, will often mean poverty, alcohol,
drugs, domestic violence, divorce, and suicide. In order not to face themselves,
the lies they were told, and the crimes they committed, these soldiers
will return to what they learned in Iraq - crime, drug trafficking, prostitution,
rape, armed robbery, child abuse, racism, and rallying around the flag.
-
- The government of the US will then have to engage in
another massive coverup. This time it will be to avoid admitting any responsibility
for the psychological illnesses of its servicemen, and for providing no
resources to treat them. Damaged soldiers will become a supply of felons
to the US justice system, which long ago stopped caring about any kind
of social justice. The justice system will in turn deliver the veterans
to the prison system, the US's largest growth industry.
-
-
- Information about the number of US causalities in Iraq
is available on the web site of the Pentagon, a building which some are
now calling the "War Hub." This information covers only those
who are officially US citizens enlisted with different military services.
Hired security contractors, or mercenaries, and recruits who are not citizens
who enlisted to obtain a "green card," are not counted or mentioned.
A large number of the green card recruits are from Mexico and Central America.
There are no organizations to look after their rights or help them once
they're in Iraq. Most of them are buried in Iraq when killed. A videotape
produced and distributed by the "Majles Shora Al-Mojahideen in Fallujah,"
one of the most important military wings of the Iraqi resistance, showed
a burial site discovered outside the Iraqi city of Samarra with tens of
bodies in US military body bags. The dead where dressed in US uniforms.
It is estimated that as many as 40% of the US troops serving in Iraq are
green card recruits.
-
- The website of the Pentagon divides the causalities in
Iraq into three categories:
-
- 1)"Combat Causalities" -- 1,300 dead, and 9,000
injured since March, 2003. Both figures are false.
-
- 2) "Non-Combat Causalities." The site does
not report how many of these were injured or killed. Last fall, 60 Minutes
concluded that the figure could be around 3,000 killed and over 25,000
injured.
-
- 3) "Coalition Causalities." Information under
this category was posted briefly, then deleted. The figures showed 750
killed and 1,034 injured. It is not clear who these people were. If they
were "coalition forces," then why are their countries not claiming
them?
-
- The US government has gained a reputation of systematically
lying to its population and the rest of the world, but a few facts about
Iraq are emerging despite efforts to conceal them:
-
- * Political stability and security in Iraq is non-existent.
This goes to the heart of the claimed US goal in Iraq. The US justified
its removal by military means of Saddam as a way to create a better and
more stable country. Instead, Iraqis are caught in poverty, hunger, and
terrible violence every day as a direct result of US forces. Iraq is not
a better place today, as Tony Blair and George Bush have claimed. And after
Fallujah no one any longer believes the US is trying to bring freedom to
the Iraqis.
-
- * That great lie, the "war on terrorism," has
failed to crush what the US calls international terrorism. US citizens
are not safer today than they were on September 11, 2001. In fact, the
most powerful force in the US -- its military machine - is now completely
vulnerable to lethal attacks by the ever-growing Iraqi resistance. Normally,
the military is established to defend or attack those labeled enemies of
the state. In the case of the US, its military is designed to twist the
arms of those who do not agree with its imperial agenda. The US is clearly
involved in practicing terrorism by military means to achieve its strategic
interests everywhere around the globe. But in Iraq, the mighty US military,
with over 150,000 well-armed troops, is very nervous and suffers from low
morale, and in the eyes of the world has lost the moral edge. Furthermore,
the war is not a well supported cause in the US. This time the risk of
getting killed in Iraq is real. This time the enemy is real.
-
- The US public must decide on supporting a policy of war
that is killing their own children and the Iraqi people, or fighting against
the war by taking drastic measures --measures that go beyond vigils and
feel-good political demonstrations. We may be sure that if what we are
told about Iraq by the US government does not look good, the actual truth
must be a great deal worse. The truth about Iraq is that "the mighty
US GI's" are not so mighty.
-
- [Amer Jubran is a Palestinian living in Jordan. He left
the United States one year ago after being jailed and harassed by the Department
of Homeland Security for speaking and organizing in the Boston area in
defense of Palestinian rights. He can be reached at amerjubran@msn.com]
-
- Courtesy of Amer Jubran
- Thanks to Richard Hugus
|
