UK Soldiers Kicked Iraqi Prisoner to Death - Report

[Flagg]

UK Soldiers Kicked Iraqi Prisoner to Death - Report
Sat January 3, 2004 06:13 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Eight young Iraqis arrested in the southern Iraqi town of Basra last year were assaulted by British soldiers, and one of them died of his injuries, a British newspaper said in its Sunday edition.
Baha Mousa's body was returned to his family covered in bruises and with his nose broken, after he and seven other men were arrested by British forces in September 2003 and held in military custody for three days, the Independent on Sunday said.

The newspaper said in its report by veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk that it had seen military and medical records of the case showing that the father of two suffered his injuries in a severe beating.

<snip<
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040103/ts_nm/iraq_britain_prisoner_dc&cid=564&ncid=1478



feel safer now ?:puke:

[caledesi]

1. How to win hearts and minds -

Kick the shit out of them. After all they are only human beings.

edit: usual stuff

[0007]

6. Ah yes, in the name of brotherhood do we show our love, 'eh?

[LibertyorDeath]

2. They are not Soldiers if they did this they are pond scum.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Winning hearts and minds....

Another needless death.

[RC]

4. Didn't see the UK at first and assumed...

Never mind.

[Judi Lynn]

5. No excuse. Not ever. n/t

[Moderator]

7. Kick

:dem:

[IndianaGreen]

8. Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

Our last occupation

Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

Jonathan Glancey
Saturday April 19, 2003
The Guardian

No one, least of all the British, should be surprised at the state of anarchy in Iraq. We have been here before. We know the territory, its long and miasmic history, the all-but-impossible diplomatic balance to be struck between the cultures and ambitions of Arabs, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, of Assyrians, Turks, Americans, French, Russians and of our own desire to keep an economic and strategic presence there.

Laid waste, a chaotic post-invasion Iraq may now well be policed by old and new imperial masters promising liberty, democracy and unwanted exiled leaders, in return for oil, trade and submission. Only the last of these promises is certain. The peoples of Iraq, even those who have cheered passing troops, have every reason to mistrust foreign invaders. They have been lied to far too often, bombed and slaughtered promiscuously.

Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.

The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to "police" them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain's League of Nations' mandate. The mandate ended in 1932; the semi-colonial monarchy in 1958. But during the period of direct British rule, Iraq proved a useful testing ground for newly forged weapons of both limited and mass destruction, as well as new techniques for controlling imperial outposts and vassal states.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html

[tlcandie]

9. Thanks for adding this .. I will read at a different time....

When will we ever learn that we create that which we hate and then kill it out of fear and repulsion?

:hi:

[pinto]

14. "Partition" may be floated as one way out of this quagmire...

a three state federalism - southern Shia, Central Sunni and northern Kurd - the Brits are historically keen on partition.

And the Kurds are calling for autonomy up front, as they always have.

Unfortunately it has a way of cementing long term conflicts.

[SnoringMouse]

10. This is a good chance to drag bush into this snafu

If we can pin this on bush it would really help us in Novenber. How can we get bush to take this on his narrow shoulders?

[7th_Sephiroth]

11. it smells like

war crimes tribunal time

[Tinoire]

12. Here's Fisk's Article: British soldiers 'kicked Iraqi prisoner to death'

It's worse when you read it in its entirety


British soldiers 'kicked Iraqi prisoner to death'
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
4 January 2004

Eight young Iraqis arrested in Basra were kicked and assaulted by British soldiers, one of them so badly that he died in British custody, according to military and medical records seen by The Independent on Sunday.

<snip>

"We were put in a big room with our hands tied and with bags over our heads. But I could see through some holes in my hood. Soldiers would come in - ordinary soldiers, not officers, mostly with their heads shaved but in uniform -- and they would kick us, picking on one after the other. They were kick-boxing us in the chest and between the legs and in the back. We were crying and screaming.

"They set on Baha especially, and he kept crying that he couldn't breathe in the hood. He kept asking them to take the bag off and said that he was suffocating. But they laughed at him and kicked him more. One of them said: 'Stop screaming and you'll be able to breathe more easily.' Baha was so scared. Then they increased the kicking on him and he collapsed on the floor. None of us could stand or sit because it was too painful."

<snip>

Col Daoud Mousa says that his son was deliberately kicked to death by the soldiers because they discovered that his father had persuaded the British officer - "Second Lieutenant Mike" - to arrest several British soldiers who were stealing money from the hotel during the raid. "I saw two of the soldiers at the back of a safe, wrenching it open and stuffing money into their shirts and pockets - Iraqi dinars and foreign money. The officer made one of the men open his shirt and he found the money and the soldier was disarmed. But the military inquiry didn't want to hear about this - they weren't interested in the theft or why the soldiers who were stealing the money would want to mistreat my son as a result of what I did."

<snip>

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/fisk10.html

[xchrom]

13. how to create terrorists

in ten easy kicks.
i was also glad to see the post about britains previous iraqi incursion.

[Just Me]

15. Where is the "visible" actions towards justice in this situation?

The US and UK better stop denying this stuff and take some just actions. Just one of these situations can poison a dozen positive situations if there is a failure of "visible" actions towards justice.