US Army Murderers
24 May 2010
Having been born only 14 years after the end of WWII, with a father who saw active service all the way through, war stories rated very highly on my reading agenda.
As a result, I was aware very early on that even in wartime, different standards applied to killing. While women and civilians may be killed by the thousands in bombing raids, it was not at all the done thing to shoot someone who was unarmed, surrendering, or a non-combatant away from the front line.
This is why the names of people like Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger and U20 stand in infamy to this day for sinking the unarmed RMS Lusitania. (While unarmed herself, Lusitania was carrying arms for Britain.)
Stories of war heroism vied with stories of obscene behaviour by Japanese soldiers and prison guards and the few true stories of the Holocaust which filtered through into biographies.
Along with worshipping the heroes, we were expected to - and did - vilify the pilots who machine-gunned the lifeboats and others who refused to "play fair" even in wartime.
New Zealand has its own mini-holocaust to deal with thanks to the massacre of 49 Japanese prisoners on 25th February 1943. Details of the massacre is not something that is routinely taught at schools, and I note with interest that a site styled "NZ School History" states that the Japanese were attempting to escape. This is pure fiction, and clearly an ongoing part of the attempt to cover up this shameful episode as much as possible.
Even the New Zealand Government, through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has but the merest of details on the massacre, which killed almost exactly the same number that died on the inter-island ferry Wahine when it sunk.
Yet, in the 21st century, the killing of a dozen or more people in cold blood has become quite legitimate.
Graphic content warning.
If you have not yet seen this video, watch it and see how an American attack helicopter wipes out a party of innocent Iraqis going about their business. Note the cowardly shooting of clearly badly-injured and unarmed men.
Unfortunately for the US Army, two of those killed were Reuters employees filming a story.
They have become the story, and I wish to express my admiration at the blatant papering over of questions by the Pentagon, covering up for their fellow American soldiers as they shot men, creating instant widows and fatherless children by presuming that a camera is actually an RPG.
Thanks to bringing a generation of gutless scum into the world, the USA has now given us a truly "shoot first and ask questions afterwards*" world where even a reporter can look like a terrorist and be tried, judged, found guilty and then executed by an armoured coward in a helicopter. An armoured coward whose IQ is probably enough to tie his bootlaces and pull a trigger.
Hail, mighty USA, protector of democracy, upholder of free speech and justice!
*Note these words in the article linked to Huffington Post in Part II.
Part II
I've been waiting for this news for several years now: no charges in way resembling unlawful killing have been laid against the perpetrators of the Haditha Massacre.
In 2005, a party of US Marines were hit by an IED explosion which killed one of their team. These heroic examples of American manhood then retaliated by rounding up 24 innocent Iraqis who had the misfortune to live nearby to where the explosion happened, in Haditha. In a scene reminiscent of My Lai Village during the Vietnam War, the Marines then opened up on the innocent families. Here is an account from a survivor of the massacre. Old women, children and people praying were among the victims of the outrage.
Despite the killings being obvious murder of civilians, the single charge laid is that of "dereliction of duty". This is the same charge that would be laid against an army chef who forgot to cook the potatoes.
Yet Americans really have no idea why the rest of the world thinks they're scum.
Copyright © Alan Charman