Killing Iraqis in order to save them

US military can't stand to admit there are more atrocities than one on its hands

I blogged the Haditha massacre story here in March when Time magazine first published it. Not only that, I pointed out the nature of the intentional ``rampage'' of the whole US military operation in west-central Iraq during many months of 2005. The idea, it seems, was to break the infrastructure and break the back of the entire population in order to exact a ``cost'' for it's widespread support of armed opposition to the American invaders and their domination of Iraq's constitutional and electoral process.

Now the US military has exonerated itself for yet another war crime that I discussed--the March 15 massacre of a family in the town of Ishaqi, near Balad, north of Baghdad. Photos showed dead children with bullets in their brains, killed execution style. Later, Knight Ridder reporters dug up an extensive police report detailing the horrific nature of the massacre:

The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers' animals and blew up the house, the document said.

Contradicting the plain evidence found in the police report and accompanying video, the US now wants to say that,

Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an airstrike, are absolutely false.

Furthermore, the raid was legitimate under the ``rules of engagement'' because troops had tracked a ``cell leader for Al Qaeda'' to the home.

That's handy. If the military can say it was looking for ``Al Qaeda'', anything goes, even the slaughter of a 6-month-old child, as was one of the Ishaqi victims. It's little wonder that Iraqi reaction to this US self-exoneration has been outrage:

Issa Hrat Khalaf, whose brother was killed in the ensuing air strike, demanded an independent investigation and said the U.S. forces responsible for the killings should be executed.

``Where are the terrorists? Are they the old lady or the kids?'' he said in a telephone interview, referring to the fact that women and children were among the victims. ``It looks like the lives of the Iraqis are worthless.''