US Soldiers Massacred Iraqi Soccer Players

[civildisoBDence]

In an address at Montreal's McGill University, Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre, reports that he's personally viewed video of American soldiers massacreing Iraqi civilians as they played a game of soccer.

According to Hersh, three American armored vehicles were traveling through an Iraqi village when the lead vehicle was hit by an IED.

Soldiers exited the vehicles and were ordered to fire on anyone seen running near the scene...which happened to include a group of civilians playing soccer.

Hersh had hard words for both the American military and its Commander-in-Chief:

>snip<

...there has never been an army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq...

“In Washington, you can’t expect any rationality. I don’t know if he’s in Iraq because God told him to, because his father didn’t do it, or because it’s the next step in his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program,” he said.

>snip<

How can such things go unnoticed in a country that's supposed to be--and up until five years ago, was--the world's symbol of free and open governance?

Hersh doesn't mince words about that, either:

>snip<

“You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants,” Hersh said. “How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?”

>snip<

This cult needs to be held accountable for the atrocities, large and small, committed in its name.

Newsprism

[skooooo]

1. omg nt

[bluestateguy]

2. Unless there are pictures or videos this story will go nowhere

Too many people in this country will just never believe that American soldiers could ever do such a thing, and even with pictures and a video, some people will still make excuses.

That's just the way it is.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluestateguy]

13. I'd like to clarify one thing

I think most of the troops are good, honorable people, but like any collection of 150,000 people, there will be a few very bad people in the lot, and these are people who have guns and they are trained to fight.

[primavera]

20. What does "good and honorable" have to do with anything?

Read Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil, or Zimbardo's prison experiment. Put ordinary people, be they virtuous or not, in the right circumstances, and they're do unspeakable acts every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I don't think the troops are particularly "good" or "bad," they're just people in the wrong place at the wrong time and they're behaving exactly as one would expect.

[Lance_Boyle]

27. Percentage-wise

That few out of those 150K are not "very few." I have spent time at Virgina Beach in *peacetime* when the ships were in, and some of the scumfuckers they allow into the military these days are downright scary. I would not say that by and large the troops we're supposed to be supporting are "good guys." Maybe the majority are. If we're *really* lucky. Lower recruiting standards to get more bodies, and you get more and more bad brains.

[Rex]

46. Or maybe they made a horrible mistake.

I'm not excusing them either, but this is life an death and they freaked and shot everything in site. Is that moral or right or 'good'? No. Am I going to blame them for freaking out, no. They will all come home with PTSD for the rest of their lives and who knows what else. Training is great, but sometimes people make the wrong decisions.

I can't believe they shot up a soccer team. Dam. What the hell is going on over there?

[confuddled]

30. They're all nobel young men ...

except for the Marine battalion unit commander quoted here:
"Heck of a day. Good kills," the unit's commander said. And he spoke with crystalline candour about the essence of victory:
"It's over for us when the last guy who wants to fight for Saddam has flies crawling across his eyeballs. Then we go home."
Paul Knox - 4/23/03 - Globe and Mail

He is, of course, the only military man who thinks that way, right?
Saved that inspiring comment along with some nauseating pictures of the results of our activity in Iraq in my "Good Kills" folder - to remind me of who we are and what we are doing over there.

[brentspeak]

36. Are you former U.S. military?

Because if you aren't, then your "insight" into the troops is worth squat. (And by the way, this is DEMOCRATIC Underground, not Leftist Underground. Leftists congregate here, but the emphasis here is supposed to be on Democrats, and we support, not bash the troops. Your "on DU of all places" is laughable.)

[frylock]

37. define "support the troops" please

[saigon68]

43. Mr speak can't define squat

Every now and then he drops a bomb and then hides I don't think he's a democrat either

[Ms. Clio]

48. don't even know who, and it doesn't even matter

After years of reading it, I sure as hell do know that the desperate atrocity-deniers periodically crawl out from under their rocks whenever the reality of war becomes just a little too harsh.

[mike_c]

39. your indignation is pretty laughable....

So you support wanton murder for no good cause?

[saigon68]

44. Certainly the Chimp is happy with guys like Limpmann (R) Conn

The Joementum Limpmann still has a few supporters here

This would appear to be one of them.

[stepnw1f]

49. " Leftists congregate here"

Yeah... so don't stereotyping "rightists". Folks on the "left" support the troops... I find your statement to be ridiculous and without any merit. Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and get to actually know people on the Left before making such incredulous comments regarding "support".

If by ignoring atrocities is your way of supporting the troops, then maybe the Democratic Party is not the right party for you.

"leftists"... Jesus Christ! The "commies are Commin'!"

[acmavm]

3. Forty years ago news like this would have caused a mass

taking to the streets.

Now, very few even care.

I feel so responsible for this, and I was ALWAYS against the war. In fact, I was soooo naive, I really didn't believe we'd go to war.

Shows what a dumbass I can be.

[civildisoBDence]

26. We could always hit the streets again

but we'd have to dodge the SUVs and Hummers this war is being fought for.

Newsprism

[Vexatious Ape]

4. That's an interesting way to describe the Neocons

A "cult" fits perfectly, but who's the leader? Dick, Wolfie, Kristol, or the idiot Rummy?

[civildisoBDence]

21. Why, Jesus, of course! Onward Christian Soldiers and all...

As badly as I want to believe that DUHbya is evil, I'm afraid he really is just naive, misguided, delusional, simplistic, and ignorant.

Newsprism

[coalition_unwilling]

25. Backward, Christian Soldiers :) n/t

[civildisoBDence]

33. Good one. Someone should write a whole set of lyrics...

Backward Christian soldiers, marching off to war
With the strength of Jesus, poisoned to the core...

Newsprism

[bling bling]

5. How in the world did we get here.

I think future historians will have to answer that one.

How in the world do I explain it all to my kids someday tho?

[Ezlivin]

17. We got here on the same path that Nazi Germany took

That's what is so incredibly sad. We have the advantage of history and yet it didn't change a thing.

Here are some salient points from an essay titled "But Then It Was Too Late":

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
...

Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about - we were decent people - and kept us so busy with continuous changes and "crises" and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the "national enemies", without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
...

Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
...

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, "everyone is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there will be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to you colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, "It's not so bad" or "You're seeing things" or "You're an alarmist."

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to – to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked – if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in "43" had come immediately after the "German Firm" stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in "33". But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying "Jew swine," collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in – your nation, your people – is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God.The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

[civildisoBDence]

28. Then there's the old and appropriate pun--Nazi=NOT SEE

As in Sgt. Schultz: "I know NOTHING."

Newsprism

[Mnemosyne]

29. Essay from the book -"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945" - by Milton Mayer

Available at Powells -

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-0226511928-2

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:
"Among the many books written on Germany after the collapse of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, this book by Milton Mayer is one of the most readable and most enlightening."—Hans Kohn, New York Times Book Review "It is a fascinating story and a deeply moving one. And it is a story that should make people pause and think—think not only about the Germans, but also about themselves."—Ernest S. Pisko, Christian Science Monitor "Writing as a liberal American journalist of German descent and Jewish religious persuasion Mr. Mayer aims—and in the opinion of this reviewer largely succeeds—at scrupulous fairness and unsparing honesty. It is this that gives his book its muscular punch."—Walter L. Dorn, Saturday Review "Once again the German problem is at the center of our politics. No better, or more humane, or more literate discussion of its underlying nature could be had than in this book."—August Heckscher, New York Herald Tribune


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

How and why "decent men" became Nazis. Written by an American journalist of German\Jewish descent. Mr. Mayer provides a fascinating window into the lives, thoughts and emotions of a people caught up in the rush of the Nazi movement. It is a book that should make people pause and think -- not only about the Germans, but also about themselves.


The discrepancy between the kind of society many Germans thought they were building and the reality of the horror of the Third Reich presents one of the most intriguing questions of our age. "How could it -- the Holocaust -- have happened in a modern, industrialized, educated nation ? The genesis of my interest in the Third Reich lies in my search for an answer to that enigmatic question.
The excerpt reproduced below is one of the most insightful I have yet discovered. I share it with you - Pass it on - Lest we forget. RCD - Web Host
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The essay you posted follows, although there is a little more text in the one you posted. Might have been written and expanded into the book?

This book is astonishing; especially when viewed through our current times. Slow and insidious.

:hi: from a fellow "alarmist" Ezlivin.

[Ezlivin]

41. Thanks for the full reference

I had read this somewhere, was moved by it, copied a portion of it to send out to the "unenlightened" that I know.

I feel that it is truly prescient.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. Neocons like Hannity will report that soccer playing has returned to Iraq

[mike_c]

7. I remember seeing pics of this posted on that web site...

...that swapped porn for Iraq war photos (I think). I can't find the link and I'm sure the photos are gone anyway-- and I'm uncertain if that was actually the site or not, it was a couple of years ago IIRC. But the pics were gruesome-- dead young men photographed with rifles placed near their bodies, and the captions stated that they were playing soccer and were later made to look like insurgents for the camera. I *might* have bookmarked the link on my home computer. I'll look for it later, although as I said, I suspect the pics are long gone. I could not find them just now with a Google image search.

Does anyone else remember seeing those pics a year or two ago?

[RebelOne]

23. I remember them, but I don't think I ever saved the link.

The photos were just too gruesome.

[mike_c]

40. OK, that site was undermars and those pics are not there....

I looked, which means that I'm off my lunch for some time to come-- those pics are not there but some pretty horrendous others are. It is REALLY bad. I'll keep looking-- maybe indymedia or even cryptome. Damn, I wish I had a link.

[dchill]

8. !

:grr::cry::puke:

words fail

[saigon68]

9. They weren't studying hard enough that's why they were in IRAQ-NAM

[gaspee]

12. Yeah right

you're kidding, right?

[saigon68]

22. No the thugs who killed the players

[gordianot]

11. Leaders are responsible.

Start with Bush and the Generals of the American Military

[peacetalksforall]

14. We have a 'collapsed press'. That 's perfect. Let's use it.

A collapsed press that spends more time on crime, scandals, and entertainers than they do on the destruction of our country.

All those so-called journalists and their bosses - what a waste of a university degree.

[Judi Lynn]

15. And the White House Press Corps, now THERE'S a sterling bunch

of ace journalists. You have to wonder how they can look at themselves in the mirror each morning without an unbearable sense of shame (except for Helen Thomas).

They are taking money for a job not attended.

[civildisoBDence]

24. We might call 'em the Hushpuppy Press..

Hushpuppies are balls of fried dough tossed to the dogs to keep them quiet.

Our reporters are like cowering puppies at the feet of the Master, hoping for a morsel here and there and fearing they'll be tossed off the farm like the REAL watchdogs.

Newsprism

[tblue37]

34. And David Gregory. (eom)

[lumpy]

16. I hope the video Hersh describes will be made

public no matter how much it may hurt. People in this country need to know the whole truth otherwise how can we ever realize the concept that this nation is to be one of integrity and justice.

[bamacrat]

18. I knew we hated soccer but damn.

This is awful, we need more journalists and people from the "media" to speak up. I have a feeling if we win next week we will have a lot of bandwagoning happening in the media. Disgusting, the present media is more about entertainment than it is informative.

[TexasLawyer]

19. Re the soccer game--

and here's what Americans are told:

<snip>

“About ten minutes later, begin dragging bodies together, and they drop weapons there.

It was reported as 20 or 30 insurgents killed that day,” he said.

[Julius Civitatus]

31. Drop weapons?

What exactly does that mean? Did they put weapons on purpose to make it look like the soccer players were insurgents?

Please explain.

:shrug:

[mike_c]

38. yes that is the allegation-- I remember seeing still pics from that massacre...

...posted on the internet some time ago, or if not that massacre then one remarkably like it. RebelOne corroborates that memory upthread. IIRC, the pics showed dead young men on the WITH NO WEAPONS NEARBY and then another set of pics showed the same bodies posed differently with weapons sprawled beside them. The captions indicated that the weapons had been placed there to suggest that the dead young men were insurgents. My memory is imperfect and I've been unable to find those pics again so far, but I'm still looking. I could kick myself now for not copying them when I had a chance.

[JohnyCanuck]

32. "there has never been an army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq"

After reading this following story, I would find it hard to disagree with Mr. Hersh's assesment.

Move Over G.I. Joe and Han Solo
Sgt. Ricky Clousing, Peace Action Hero

by Elizabeth de la Vega

SNIP

As a tactical interrogator assigned to question detainees at the scene of infantry raids, Ricky did not witness the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What he did witness, however, was hardly less horrifying: American soldiers indoctrinated to view Iraqis as less than human, as "ragheads" or worse; American soldiers out on the streets of the Iraqi capital ramming the cars of Iraqi civilians for sport; American soldiers laughing as they slaughtered the livestock of local farmers; and American soldiers shooting an Iraqi teenager who had simply made a wrong turn.

Ricky was on patrol when he saw a boy, "probably 18 years old, a small maybe high-school age kid" turn down a road his unit was attempting to secure. The teenager, Ricky said, was quite visibly terrified at the sight of "a whole bunch of Americans with big weapons" staring him in the face. He started turning the car around, but didn't get very far. This is how Ricky described what happened next:

"One of the soldiers in the turret of the humvee behind me just opened up fire on the machine gun on the vehicle. As the vehicle was turning away, all I heard above my head was "pop, pop, pop, pop." This was my first deployment, my first combat experience was that moment right then, and just the sound of machine guns going off over my head. He popped about five or six rounds in the side of the vehicle. Myself and two of the other guys ran over to the vehicle, smashed the window, and pulled the guy out to provide first aid on him… I was looking down at this kid who had just been shot in the stomach for no reason really -- he was trying to leave…I was still just standing there in shock, looking down at this kid, and he looked right up at me. And his mouth was foaming. His stomach was falling out in his hands… I was looking down at this kid, this young boy who was just trying to drive around town and took a wrong turn and tried to go the other direction, was shot at and killed, and I'm looking down at him now. And we made eye contact for about five seconds, and he just looked at me with the most empty, terrified look in his face that will never leave me in my whole life I'm sure."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=134536

[brentspeak]

35. Fix the headline -- that's not the article's headline, and it's unsubstantiated anyway

[civildisoBDence]

42. Fix your attitude. THAT's well substantiated. n/t

[Jcrowley]

45. U.S. Military Adopts Desperate Tactics- Dahr Jamail

IRAQ:
U.S. Military Adopts Desperate Tactics
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

FALLUJAH, Oct 31 (IPS) - Increased violence is being countered by harsh new measures across the Sunni-dominated al-Anabar province west of Baghdad, residents say.

"Thousands have been killed here by the Multi-National Forces (MNF) and Iraqi allies, and the situation is getting worse every day," a member of the Fallujah city council speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "We have no role to play because the Americans always prefer violent solutions that have led from one disaster to another."

The violence appears to be affecting the civilian population far more than it is stifling the resistance. The suffering of people in Fallujah increases by the day, and the number of resistance snipers appears to be increasing in response to the U.S. use of snipers against civilians.

<snip>

"The Americans brought five dead civilians whom they shot in the city streets in revenge for their casualties," a man at the former football field now called Martyrs Graveyard told IPS. "We are going to need another graveyard, this one is going to be full soon." All semblance of normal living in the province is disappearing. Saif al-Juboori, a student at the University of al-Anbar in Ramadi says this will be a wasted year for thousands of students.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35317

[sqarebis]

47. OMFG!

This is incredibly sad - we need to get out of that madhouse before it's too late.