Additional U.S. Massacres Emerging In Iraq

THE U.S. MILITARY has told the BBC it is investigating an incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians may have been deliberately killed by US troops. Video footage obtained by the BBC appears to challenge the US account of events in the town of Ishaqi in March.

This is the second such incident which has come to light in recent weeks, the first being the alleged massacre of 24 cilivilans in Haditha. I had decided not to comment on this initial incident because the rest of the world seemed to be doing a decent job of it, but then I got drawn into comment stream over at Ogre’s site where I just felt I had to put a few things straight. You can read the comment ebb/flow for yourself and decide, but my view is that it is highly likely – given the wealth of information now emerging – that the Haditha incident was indeed an outrageous massacre on the part of the Marines.

Now we have yet another incident emerging according to the BBC who claim to have a video which proves their allegations of U.S. misconduct in this instance. The article also confirms that the pengaton is investgating ‘several’ other incidents as well – which ties in with claims from the Iraqi governement that the U.S. forces are committing daily attrocities against civilians. For those interested in the Haditha incident you can find a complete chronology here for reference.

This is beginning to look more and more like the disaster that was Vietnam for the Americans. So far, the key response from the U.S. Military (beyond having to submit to a Pentagon investigation) has been to order some “ethics” training for their troops. It’s a bit late lads… just a tiny bit late to be talking about ethics after the events of the last three years.

It’s a disgrace and I’m getting the impression that this is just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately.