So-called democracies are getting away with murder, literally. Innocents die and it is never the fault of governments, officials, the military or police. Inquiries abound with the perpetrators invariably plucked off the hook with the pretext that they were rightly following “rules of engagement”. Such government-endorsed killings have rarely been as prevalent as they are today. Indeed, we only know the tip of the iceberg — incidents caught on camera. One can only wonder about those swept under the carpet, eyewitnesses discredited or ignored.
Israel, for instance, is currently scratching around to find a fall guy for its “massacre” of Palestinian picnickers enjoying a day out at the beach. No doubt my faithful e-mailing tribe of “patriots” will quibble with that description, citing dictionaries and historical incidents to persuade me that a “massacre” it was not. But what else can you call it when 12-year-old Huda Ghalia, fresh from taking her exams, suddenly finds herself alone in the world, with the remnants of seven members of her family buried under the ground?
What does the future hold for this child who witnessed an atrocity that will always stay etched in her memory?
“I saw my brothers and sisters bleeding,” she later recounted. “I saw a head and hands but did not realize to whom they belonged. I saw my father. He was dead and lied on the heap”.
Witnesses say the attack came from the sea but Brig. Gen., Aviv Kohavi, head of the IDF’s Gaza Division, claims the civilians were either killed by an IDF shell or by Palestinian fire, noting that the Palestinians were not cooperating with the army’s probe. That’s it then. It’s all the fault of the Palestinians.
Hamas leaders are so incensed — and rightly so — that they have called off an 18-month-long cease-fire. Soon they will be blamed for reverting to the “terrorist ideology” with which Israel and the US has stamped them despite their efforts to use diplomacy instead of weapons. It’s always the same. When Israel kills civilians it is invariably termed “a mistake”. When Palestinian groups retaliate they are automatically labeled “terrorists”.
UN chief Kofi Annan has called for an inquiry but that’s where it will end. Following Israel’s destruction of Jenin in 2002, when more than 50 Palestinians were killed, the UN set up a team of investigators. Israel simply refused them entry and that was that.
Sadly for the Palestinians, the situation plays right into Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s hands. He can now tell his buddy in the White House that he doesn’t have a partner for peace and continue to finalize Israel’s permanent borders.
Moving east toward Iraq, it’s a similar scenario. Once again, the weak and helpless are invariably in the wrong with Western governments and their media mouthpieces sympathizing with their poor battle-fatigued soldiers. Notice how their commanders are almost invariably kept out of the loop. When in 2004, NBC correspondent Kevin Sykes filmed a Marine shooting an unarmed and wounded insurgent lying on the floor of a Fallujah mosque, the US media turned against the messenger. Sykes was branded unpatriotic and the shooter was given a mere rap on the knuckles.
On March 15 US troops raided the Iraqi village Ishaqi and according to a report filed by Iraqi police, they rounded up and deliberately shot 11 people, including five children and four women. This account was backed up by a videotape obtained by the BBC showing the dead mangled by “gunshot wounds” according to the BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson. Naturally, a US Army investigation found absolutely no wrongdoing.
This must, therefore, imply that the women and children were dangerous terrorists; they shot themselves or were shot by their own family members or neighbors. And I’m a Chinaman.
In November 24 Iraqis, including women and children died at the hands of four US Marines in the town of Haditha. At first, we learned their deaths were a result of a roadside bomb. Victims’ families were handed the desultory sum of $2,500 compensation and that would have been the end of it if it weren’t for a Time Magazine report showing the dead had been shot.
On this occasion the US has taken the accusation seriously and there are currently two investigations underway: One concerning the incident itself and another as to the cover-up. Rep. John Murtha, who has been appraised on the incident, described the killing as deliberate. A Marine who was injured on that day by an IED suggested his co-Marines may have gone on a rampage of revenge. Marines sent to clean up the carnage still suffer from nightmares and post-traumatic stress from the sight of headless toddlers. But don’t hold your breath.
On Sunday, one of the Marines in question spoke out via his lawyer, insisting that his unit was following military rules of engagement, did not target civilians and did not attempt a cover-up. He claims that while in pursuit of insurgents (none were found) they threw grenades into homes before spraying the interiors with bullets. If that is, indeed, normal procedure the Pentagon, which has recently scrubbed the Geneva Conventions from its military rulebook, should be held to account.
Nouri Al-Maliki, the new Iraqi prime minister, isn’t falling for any of it, slamming “coalition forces” for their habitual attacks against civilians. He plans to investigate the above incidents and has asked the US military to hand out relevant files. But at the end of the day what can he do when his country is still occupied and fraught with sectarian violence?
My own country Britain is no paragon of virtue either. Two British soldiers, who arrested and allegedly beat an Iraqi teenager before telling him to swim across the Zubair River where he drowned, were recently acquitted. In the case of the killing of 26-year-old hotel receptionist Baha Mousa by British troops in Basra, it took a December High Court ruling to force the government into taking the matter seriously.
The British government is further coming under fire by the country’s Muslim community for its heavy-handed tactics when tackling “terror”.
A high-profile raid on two homes in the Forest Gate area of London earlier this month by 250 armed policemen clad in chemical suits turned out to be a farce. According to reports, the police, said to be searching for a chemical bomb, battered down doors and shot 23-year-old Mohammed Abdul Kahar without warning. He and his brother were then taken into custody while police set about wrecking both homes in a fruitless search for evidence.
One surely doesn’t have to be Einstein to realize that the “war on terror” is not only terrorizing innocent people, it is incurring anger and fomenting rage among Muslims who appear to be its sole targets.
Isn’t it about time that Western government and Israel got together to seek a fresh approach — hopefully one that will nurture hearts and minds and unite communities against the common foe of extremism? Bulldozing homes, bombing wedding parties, wiping out picnickers with missiles and shooting women and children not only doesn’t do the job, it is making things much worse.
