Massive war crime in Fallujah
Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 07/05/2016 - 3:50pm
Iraq is no stranger to war crimes, but this time the war crime was committed by our allies that we give weapons to.
Up to 900 men and boys who fled their homes near Isis’ former stronghold of Fallujah remain missing in Iraq after being abducted by a militia accused of torturing, shooting and beheading civilians.
The United Nations said captives who have since been freed by the paramilitary group reported a litany of war crimes and atrocities after they sought refuge from battles between Isis and Iraqi forces last month.
The Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) said the refugees headed towards what they believed to be government forces hailing them with loudspeakers but arrived to find a line of militia fighters behind the Iraqi flags bearing the standard of Kataaib Hezbollah.
The Shia paramilitary group was designated a terror organisation by the US in 2009 because of its attacks on coalition troops but is now fighting Isis alongside Iraqi government forces.
These are the "good guys".
Most of several thousand Sunni civilians taken by this terrorist unit were later freed, but not until after they were tortured.
A spokesperson for the OHCHR said reported survivors saying at least four men were beheaded, while others were handcuffed and beaten to death, with bodies being publicly set on fire.
Unfortunately, this is not an unusual situation. We have the same situation happening in Syria according to Amnesty International.
The report singles out three US-backed groups, the Nour al-Din Zanki Movement, the Levant Front, and the Free Syrian Army’s 16th Division, as being involved in torture and abuse of minorities and peaceful activists, along with carrying out summary executions of captured pro-government fighters.
The details of the abuses greatly resemble those the US has railed against ISIS over, accused of kidnapping Christian priests, killing people accused of being gay, and torturing journalists for reporting in ways seen unfriendly to their factions....
The US often brags about how well it vets the various rebel factions it chooses to subsidize, but more than once those groups have ended up siding with al-Qaeda or ISIS when push comes to shove, and this reports suggests that even the groups that have managed to remain in America’s pocket are war criminals.
Look, I know this gets a little repetitive after a while, but until people admit that our "humanitarian war" justification is just a sad, hypocritical joke, then it's necessary to keep pointing out that you can't defeat evil by becoming evil.
Comments
A classic case of
look at that shiny object over there. We built that.
Our nation needs to crumble like the romans did. The question is, who will bring us to our knees first? Fellow humans or mother nature?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
We Will.
We'll spend our every last cent on wars and crumble from within just like the Romans and the Soviets, and then blame the world for it. Although all bets are off on climate, that could get us before we do, but I'm not sure...
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Don't worry
Hillary will start a new war soon after she is sworn in. This new improved war will take your mind off our other wars.
Another Refugee from the Great Orange Purity Troll
we are the evil empire
No wonder people want to kill us.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The official slogan of the United States
Is that it spreads freedom and democracy all over the world needs to be changed to " We came, We saw, They died.
Since the pilgrims land at the Rock, many people in the United States started a killing spree that hasn't stopped.
And after the Monroe doctrine was signed, they took their show on the road.
How can people in our government turn a blind eye to the amount of death and misery that they have brought to so many countries with their illegal wars of aggression that only go to benefit the corporations and the defense industries?
Hillary, McCain, Graham and those 51 people who wrote to Obama to put troops into Syria don't give a good god damn about whether innocent civilians are killed or have to flee their countries or how many troops die, have their body parts blown off or suffer from PTSD as long as they can get rich off of these actions.
And after Obama was elected and continued PNAC's goals in the Middle East, the so called progressives have gone silent.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Wow, snoopy. From the Pilgrims to
the Monroe Doctrine all the way to Obama, someone's been paying attention. It's the comments from people like you (and mimi! and lotlizard! and ... and ... and) that keep me coming back to c99.
Thank you for making the effort to keep posting your insightful comments, because there are always those for whom these ideas are new who need to read about them. And those of us who've gained these understandings along the way are heartened to know we aren't alone.
Carry on, good dawg, carry on!
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
Thanks, dr.
I am so sick of hearing about more people being killed because of the actions of our government.
I know that there are others on this site that are just as sickened you what our government does with our money.
People say in our name too because if we were really that upset about this then we would rise up against it. But more than half of the country thinks that it's okay that our military is killing people in the Middle East.
Look at how many people agree with Trump when he says that we should kill the terrorists families.
If that's going to be acceptable, then it should be acceptable for the terrorists to kill the people in the countries where there governments are killing in the Middle East.
Eye for an eye just leaves people without eyes.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
A reminder
I posted yesterday
gjohnsit,
what I wrote above to snoopy regarding her comments goes for you also wrt to your posts about US war crimes.
Not everyone catches everything posted on these pages. Repetition does not hurt. In fact, it's not only useful, it's necessary.
Thank you for your repeatedly banging this drum. You can't beat it too often or too loudly for me.
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
This is a complex situation
Nothing justifies the torture or summary executions, but I suspect this is a complex situation. The article says most of the missing were from
"Anbar Province’s Dulaim tribe, which has been part of violent resistance against the Iraqi state."
In other words, there's a good chance these guys were ISIS fighters or collaborators. There have been numerous accounts of ISIS militants embedding themselves in groups of refugees as they left Fallujah using the agreed upon "humanitarian corridors".
I saw a really awful video clip on social media where an ISIS fighter captured by a militia was killed after they posted a poll or something, letting the public decide what they should do to him. Also an obvious war crime.
Hopefully, the Iraq and coalition had a process set up to take prisoners of war and a place to take them to, but I'm not even sure if they did. I know they were at least trying to do this without causing atrocities because they knew the whole world was watching and the govt really wanted to, or at least they said they did want to do this the right way. But I'm not sure if the coalition fighters had the facilities to do so.
I think the likely situation is that as the refugees came out of Fallujah, the various forces were given the task of figuring out if any of them were ISIS fighters, and the ones who were suspect were treated badly, and that's where the war crimes happened. It looks like they disappeared the ones who they decided were ISIS or collaborators.
It's also possible that this particular militia was just seriously bad news that committed the kinds of atrocities all Shia militias were accused of, but some, and according to special envoy Brent McGurk most Shia militias were not "bad apples". There were earlier reports some weeks ago from Sunni civilians saying how shocked they were that the Shia militias (PMU) treated them well. ISIS had been warning them inside Fallujah that if they left, the militias would slaughter them when they got out.
I can't even imagine living in that country. I can't imagine being stuck in an ISIS-held city. And as the Iraqis take back the ISIS held territory, I can't imagine the kinds of horrific scenes there will be as the "sorting out" occurs. If they miss an ISIS fanatic as he comes out of one of the cities, they risk another horrific market bombing in a Baghdad Shia neighborhood by the guy. And they've had one after another after another suicide bombing, often in the middle of markets.
The stories about the different sects cooperating are really encouraging. There is at least some percentage of the population, including the fighting forces, who want to overcome the sectarian violence. But no doubt there is another segment who don't. I hope the good guys win but there's no doubt it won't be a clean cut victory.
I've never seen any complexity at all in all these years.
This is a Sunni on Shiite genocidal extermination. All US allies in the region, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, support the ethnic cleansing of Shia as far as the border to Iran. And then, beyond, once the Mad Neocon Bomber is in the White House.
Not one thing has changed since before Bush the Lesser accidentally invaded Iraq on the wrong side on this genocide — and nothing has changed since in our continuing extermination of the Shiites and the overthrow of secular governments that protect them.
Perhaps the reason USians are so confused about this is the fact that the major terrorist attacks inside the US are executed by Sunnis. The same Sunnis the US funds and arms in the Middle East. Isis, for example.
But keeping Americans confused is the reason why Our Overlords made 9/11 a CT topic from Day One.
If Americans ever found out there was such a thing as Shias and Sunnis, and found out which side the US fought for and why, then they would figure out why 9/11 had to happen. And then they might notice when the Sunnis execute a terrorist attack in the US, Americans happily spend as much as half their government revenues on funding the Shia genocide across the Middle East. Ever wonder why Neocons insist that Obama use "propaganda-for-dummies" to describe all attacks as, "Radical Islamic Terrorism?" Now you know.
(Although I seriously doubt there was ever any possibility that the American people might suddenly wake up and smell the espresso.)
Or, maybe there is a reality here that is so complex, I never even saw it.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Snoopy and Pluto
The dogs know how to sniff this out.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Woof!! It's all in da nose. n/t
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
And if keeps getting worse
Fallujah