Americans accused of brutal 'punishment' tactics in Iraq

Although the reports are not about the most recent case, we know the mindset of the military from other wars. I give you the series which just started in the Toledo Blade about atrocities (brace yourself, there's one very similar to the one described above) in Vietnam.

Wouldn't it be nice if folks like McG and Perception would, rather than jumping in and making fools of themselves, go to Google, look for additional information, wait twenty-four hours if necessary before commenting. They just look bad and ruin a decent discussion.

There is a certain mindset that alternates between "My country can do no wrong," and "My country, wrong or right." It is particularly American, and I honestly do not understand it.

Actually, I went to Google and found only the usual suspects. AllTheWeb did better, giving sites which suggested that there was a "rationale" for destroying the orchards -- that is, a quick justification (Pentagon statement), or a genuine rationale (the truth, seldom heard or seen when it comes to military boo-boos).

Nope--no baiting going on here.

Your back slapping orgy will no doubt produce plenty more group therapy and nodding of heads but no real evidence.

Percy, there are reasons the violence against troops is escalating, and they have little to do with whatever John Wayne dreams you may have.
Excessive force now the norm?

Hobit really----I stopped reading when I saw the guy was from human rights watch-----talk about an agenda--do you ever anticipate producing a source that doens't grind your ax. Try Tartarin ----- she might believe this crap.

This guy probably wrote this trash from his comfy office inside the beltline. He's not even a reporter ----he's a consultant. Consultants always have a drink in one hand so he must have paid some cluck to type this for him.

When I first thought about posting this article, I had gone to that Vietnam thread in the History forum and was going to post it there as an example of history repeating itself. Some of the stories being told in that thread about events that occurred in Vietnam could have been written about that community in Iraq.

I thought about it and decided not to tarnish that thread and started this new one.

As for whether or not the story is true and needing more reliable sources before you want to consider believing it...

Collective punishment has been practiced in insurgency conflicts as a very common form of combat. Collective punishment is being used now by Israel against Palestinians. It's being used now by Russia against Chechens. It was used by the U.S. against Vietnamese. It was used by Nazi Germany against the Norse and the French and the Yugoslavians among others. It was used by the Nipponese against Chinese and others. There are hundreds of examples. Collective punishment has been a common practice of any invading army against insurgent forces for as long as there have been historical records kept. I haven't even mentioned the collective punishments handed down by US armies in the philippines and right here in America against the Native Americans.

By the way, this morning National Public Radio carried the story of the U.S. troops destroying the date palm groves in that Iraqi village.

The thing is that destroying groves of lemon trees, orange trees and date palms isn't like destroying a corn field. A corn field will grow back the next year. We have destroyed the livelihood of these farmers for a generation. Can you think of anything more likely to polarize these folks? Forget the fact that it's a violation of the Geneva conventions...when we do things like this, we recruit more insurgents against us. It puts our troops in longer term danger.


Here's a link to the NPR story: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1473167

According to NPR, snipers were hiding in the grove and firing at U.S. troops. Since the five acres of trees were cut down, there have been no further attacks on soldiers in that area. Some people say it does not appear that the trees were cut as punishment.

There is certainly an argument to be made that cutting down five acres of ancient date palms could be a tactical move to protect the convoys. But it's a tactical move akin to the old "We have to destroy the village to save the village" line. There are other methods for dealing with snipers that don't involve destroying the livelihood of so many villagers. For example, the convoy could have taken a different route, or the convoy could have been escorted by attack helicopters with IR targeting.

Want to know how important the orchards are to the coalition and Iraqi farmers?

Just last August, Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly said American officials were working hard to help Iraqi farmers.

"We are doing everything we can to help the Iraqi people in their economy; we've purchased the crop of barley and wheat, flew a plane load of money in to make sure we were able to make that purchase," he said.

There's a lot more information about how important the agricultural economy is to Iraq and the steps needed by the coalition to enable the farms and orchards to survive. You can read about it here. http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/6558365.htm

There is other evidence to suggest, however, that the destruction of the groves was motivated in part by a desire to punish the villagers. Lt. Col. Springman is quoted as saying, "We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us." Members of the tribal delegation who approached the U.S. commander afterwards to ask for compensation for the destruction say they were told the action was punishment (of course, they may have misunderstood...or could be lying).

Want more evidence? How about this. In the Quran the Prophet Mohammed instructed Muslims to break their dusk-to-dawn fast during the holy month of Ramadan by eating a date even before taking a drink of water. In light of attitudes such as General Boykin's, I have even less trouble giving credence to this story.

It's kind of awful that what produces these atrocities seems to be built into our military and too often condoned by many Americans. The violence, the dehumanization.

War is hell, and a good and wise president will do everything humanly possible to avert war. When one has not been involved in war themselves, it makes it much easier to send other people to war.

That's certainly true, CI. But at the bottom of the problem is our obsession with a massive overkill of a defense establishment -- way beyond what we need, provocative to others, and immensely profitable to a few. I don't know, but I suspect the cynicism which seems to first awaken in and then destroy so many of our best kids who go into the military is behind much of what goes wrong, cynicism combined with understandable fear.

Tartar, You know when we spend more than the combined other six largest economies in the world, there is a huge problem with perspective and over-kill. ooops, sorry. We spend all those billions on the military, and our folks at home are without health care - the only developed country without it, even though we spend twice what Canada spends on their universal health care. Drastically wrong priorities, but we seem to keep electing our representatives into office without thinking about all the consequences. We must share the blame. I hope Dean gets elected; he may be the right one to change things around.

I hope so, Ci. I'm too old to be sure!