Iraq
Vets: Coverage of Atrocities Is Too Little, Too Late
16 April 2010By Dahr Jamail
The WikiLeaks video footage from Iraq taken from an
Apache helicopter in July 2007 showing soldiers
killing 12 people and wounding two children has caused
an explosion of media coverage. But many Iraq vets
feel it is too little and too late.
In contrast to most of the coverage that favors the
military’s stated position of forgiving the soldiers
responsible and citing that they followed the Rules of
Engagement (ROE), Iraq war veterans who have spoken to
the media previously about atrocities carried out
against innocent Iraqis have largely been ignored by
the mainstream media in the United States.
This includes Josh Steiber, a former US Army
specialist who was a member of the Bravo Company 2-16
whose acts of brutality made headlines with the
WikiLeaks release of the video “Collateral Murder.”
Steiber told Truthout during a telephone interview on
Sunday that such acts were “not isolated incidents”
and were “common” during his tour of duty. “After
watching the video, I would definitely say that that
is, nine times out of ten, the way things ended up,”
Steiber was quoted as saying in an earlier press
release on the video, “Killing was following military
protocol. It was going along with the rules as they
are.”
Steiber was not with his unit, who were the soldiers
on the ground in the video. He was back at his base
with the incident occurred. While not absolving of
responsibility those who carried out the killing,
Steiber blames the “larger system” of the US military,
specifically how soldiers are trained to dehumanize
Iraqis and the ROE.
“We have to address the larger system that trains
people to respond in this way, or the same thing will
probably happen again,” Steiber told Truthout.
However, Steiber explained that during his basic
training for the military, “We watched videos
celebrating death,” and said that his leaders would
“pull aside soldiers who’d not deployed, and ask us if
somebody open fired on us in a market full of unarmed
civilians, would we return fire. And if you didn’t say
‘yes’ instantly, you got yelled at for not being a
good soldier. The mindset of military training was one
based on fear, and the ability to eliminate any
threat.”
Steiber was released from the military as a
conscientious objector, and is now a member of the
group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
“I saw many instances, frequently, of the military
killing civilians,” Steiber added, “One thing we were
told was that if a roadside bomb went off, anybody in
the area was considered an enemy. Obviously those are
innocent civilians since most of them, if not all of
them, are not involved with the bombing. So I would
consider those innocent civilians as lives lost. That
policy came down from high up [the chain of command].”
When Truthout asked Steiber how many times this
happened with his unit, he said, “Between five and ten
times, and each time we’d end up killing people.”
The group to which Steiber belongs, IVAW, sponsored
the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March
13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland. The hearings
provided a platform for veterans from Iraq and
Afghanistan to share the reality of their occupation
experiences with the media.
While the hearings garnered major coverage from
foreign media outlets, they were ignored by mainstream
US media outlets. The censorship of that event is
reflective of an overarching censorship by the
mainstream media in the US of veterans from both
occupations who have tried to tell their stories to
the public.
Garret Reppenhagen, who testified at the Winter
Soldier hearings, served in Iraq from February
2004-2005 in the city of Baquba, 40 kilometers (about
25 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
“There are so many incidents like this that happen in
Iraq it’s bound that eventually one of them hits the
vein of public attention, like this one,” Reppenhagen
told Truthout of his opinion of the WikiLeaks footage,
“Film helps - like this, and Abu Ghraib - the video
and film documentation helps spurn public attention.
So, it’s sad that these instances happen, and they are
occurring and it has to do with how we conduct
ourselves in this conflict - clearly there are things
that need to be done for soldiers to adhere to the
Geneva Conventions.”
Reppenhagen doubted the media uproar caused by the
leaked video would change how soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan conduct themselves. “I still doubt enough
support will be garnered to change how we operate in
theater. Eventually I hope there’ll be a critical mass
of people coming out and telling their stories about
these things.”
Bryan Casler, a corporal in the Marines, who served
both in Iraq and Afghanistan, has also spoken out
publicly about atrocities committed by US soldiers
he’d witnessed in Iraq.
“First, my response to the video is utter disgust,”
Casler told Truthout, “You watch it and the first
thing you see is them blow away a group of men who are
obviously not hostile - obviously breaking any ROE
they had. Then you watch them blow away a van coming
to rescue the wounded people … a van that happens to
have kids in it.”
Casler admitted that he has experienced some
frustration in not having had mainstream media
coverage when he has spoken out about what he
witnessed in Iraq. “You have to share this, because as
an Iraq veteran, and talking with other vets, we know
this is happening all the time. This is damning video
for a propaganda machine trying to say we’re over
there trying to save the Iraqi people. But this isn’t
happening just in Iraq, but anywhere the military is
engaged in fighting with the local population.”
The US military’s response to the WikiLeaks video has
been to claim that it was an isolated incident, and
the soldiers were properly following their ROE.
In an interview on the ABC News “This Week” program on
Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the
soldiers were operating in “split second situations,”
and that, “It’s unfortunate. It’s clearly not helpful.
But by the same token, I think - think it should not
have any lasting consequences.”
Casler begs to differ with Gates’ response.
“The argument about this being just a few bad apples -
pilots are known for keeping their cool in tough
environments, but the whole time you have to remind
yourself, it’s not these pilots committing the
atrocities - these guys had years of training and
practice to do this, and loads of money making it
happen,” Casler told Truthout, “This is what they are
trained to do. American taxpayer money was paid to
make them into this. This is not a few bad apples.”
In a response similar to Steiber’s, Casler added, “I
don’t think anybody is murderous by nature - this is
why the military trains you every day, both when
you’re deployed or not, because people are not
naturally killers - so the training is to have no
barrier to killing. And that’s what you see in the
video.”
When asked how he felt about the incident getting the
coverage it has, Casler said he was pleased.
“I’m happy the average person might see this,” he told
Truthout, “So I’m happy this is finally getting the
coverage it deserves, and every vets story coming back
needs this type of coverage. The military is censoring
what is happening over there - but this video blows
this apart. I hope more videos like this get leaked to
the media, because people need to know about this.”
Casler may not have to wait long.
WikiLeaks.org is now poised to post another damning
video of US forces slaughtering civilians - this time
in Afghanistan.
On May 5, 2009, US aircraft bombed a number of homes
in the Afghan village of Abdul Basir Khan in Farah
Province. According to Afghan officials, the death
toll was upwards of 140 civilians. The Pentagon
initially claimed the entire incident was fabricated,
but then later conceded that people were killed by the
airstrike, but that “no one will ever” know the exact
number. They also claimed that the pilots had no idea
civilians were in the area.
More recently, on April 12, four Afghan civilians were
killed in Kandahar when US troops fired on a bus in
Afghanistan. The slaughter sparked furious protests
and an expression of “regret” from the military. The
Afghan government said a woman and child were among
the dead, and that at least 18 others were wounded in
the shooting.
After serving a tour in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia
became the first conscientious objector to the Iraq
war.
Mejia claimed that he left his post in order to avoid
duties that he considered to be war crimes,
particularly citing the torture and abuse of Iraqi
prisoners by US soldiers. He was court-martialed and
listed as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty
International while serving his prison sentence.
“It was sad,” Mejia said of his reaction to the
WikiLeaks video from Iraq, “You talk to other people,
and they are shocked and can’t believe it. The fact
that people are surprised and it’s getting so much
coverage like it’s isolated and new - this is stuff
we’ve been talking about for a long time, we know this
is happening.”
Mejia, in addition to talking with people about
atrocities he committed and witnessed in Iraq, told
Truthout he was surprised at the reaction to the
video, given that he and others had shared similar
information at the Winter Soldier hearings two years
ago.
“We’re talking a couple of years from when we talked
about this stuff and exposed it - and here it is
getting coverage … it’s like we live in a twilight
zone where people don’t pay attention to when things
actually happen, but then longer after the fact, when
somebody else says the same thing, it’s huge news,”
Mejia added.
Two of the Iraqis shown being murdered in the
WikiLeaks video were employees of the Reuters news
agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver
Saeed Chmagh.
While most mainstream media in the US has reported on
the Pentagon’s statements saying that two internal
investigations have cleared the soldiers of any
wrongdoing, and that they were following the ROE,
international media like Al-Jazeera English have
reported on reactions from the families of the victims
of the attack.
In particular, the families of the slain Iraqi
civilians are seeking justice for the deaths, and want
the military personnel responsible for the deaths to
be taken to court.
Two young children, whose father was killed in the
attack, could not understand why they were targeted.
“We were coming back and we saw an injured man,” said
Sajad Mutashar, whose father was killed in the attack
while he and his sister were wounded, “My father said,
let’s take him to hospital. Then I heard only the
bullets … Why did they shoot us? Didn’t they see we
were children?”
His uncle, Satar, is demanding that the pilot be taken
to court. “Nobody gave the children anything, their
rights are gone and the Americans didn’t even
compensate for the destroyed car. I sold it for $500
to spend the money treating them,” Satar told Al
Jazeera.
The family of Saeed Chamgh, one of the Reuters
employee killed in the attack, is also demanding
justice for his death. “The pilot is not human, he’s a
monster,” Safa Chmagh, Saeed’s brother, said, “What
did my brother do? What did his children do? Does the
pilot accept his kids to be orphans?”
Salwan Saeed, Saeed’s son, said, “The American has
broken my back by killing my father. I will not let
the Americans get away with it. I will follow the path
of my father and will hold another camera.”
Mark Taylor, an international law expert and a
director at the Fafo Institute for International
Studies in Norway, told reporters the evidence so far
“indicated that there’s a case to be made that a war
crime may have been committed.”
Taylor said US authorities, and especially the US
military, have to take a closer look at this
investigation. “There are questions about the way the
investigation was conducted and whether or not it was
done in a proper manner,” he said, adding, “There are
precedents of US soldiers being prosecuted for crimes
in Iraq, for crimes of murder, rape and manslaughter.
So it’s not unprecedented that this could go forward
both in military courts as well as in civilian
criminal courts in the US.”
Taylor believes the case raises larger questions about
the laws of war, and added, “I think what this video
shows is really a case that challenges whether the
laws of war are strict enough.”
Marjorie Cohn is a former president of the National
Lawyer’s Guild, a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson
School of Law and co-author of the book “Rules of
Disengagement: The Politics of Honor and Military
Dissent.” She spoke with Truthout about possible war
crimes committed by the soldiers in the WikiLeaks
video.
“I think there’s clearly enough there to warrant an
investigation,” Cohn said, referring to the need for
an investigation of war crimes committed by US
soldiers in the video, “I’m distraught and
disappointed the US government refuses to launch an
investigation about whether or not there’ve been
violations of the law.”
Cohn cited the three possible violations to Truthout.
“What I thought after watching the video, is that it
looks like there were three possible violations of the
Geneva Conventions. There were civilians standing
around, there was no one firing at the US soldiers,
and at least two people with cameras … there may have
been people armed, like there are many people armed in
the US, but this does not create the license to fire
on people. That’s one violation of the Geneva
Conventions - targeting people who are not a military
necessity who do not pose a threat.”
Cohn said that the second and third possible violation
of the laws of war are evident in the scene on the
tape when the van attempts to rescue the wounded and a
later scene of a US tank rolling over a body on the
ground. “The soldiers shot him and those in the van,
another possible violation of the Geneva Conventions -
preventing the rescuers,” she added, “Third, when the
wounded or dead man was lying on the ground, and a US
tank rolled over him, effectively splitting him in two
- and if he was dead, that was disrespecting a body -
another violation of the Geneva Conventions.”
In that scene that occurs at 18:50 into in the full
version of the WikiLeaks video, a soldier is heard
saying, “I think they just drove over a body.” To this
another soldier is heard laughing before he respond,
“Really?”
Shortly thereafter, a soldier is heard saying, “Well,
they’re dead, so.”
Cohn concluded, “So I see several possible violations,
certainly enough to warrant an investigation by the US
military.”
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