In a story that appears to have nearly zero circulation in American news reporting, an SAS British counter-terrorist soldier, Ben Griffin, has resigned from the Army in protest of a war he considers illegal, citing numerous examples of abuse and immoral conduct by American forces in Iraq. A Google search today (3/15/06) turned up only a few published accounts of this in US online press, the independent websites
Disinfo.com and
Indymedia.org, and a small snippet in the
Washington Times. [
Google Search Results]
While many have questioned the rationale and moral justifications for invading Iraq, it is Mr. Griffin's recollection of immoral conduct by American soldiers and command that is the most unsettling. He states,
"As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen1. You could almost split the Americans into two groups: ones who were complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis, and the others who were in Iraq because the Army was going to pay their college fees. They had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture. The Americans would talk to the Iraqis as if they were stupid and these weren't isolated cases, this was from the top down. There might be one or two enlightened officers who understood the situation a bit better but on the whole that was their general attitude. Their attitude fuelled the insurgency. I think the Iraqis detested them." [Telegraph]
He further recounts:
"I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong. I knew, so others must have known, that this was not the way to conduct operations if you wanted to win the hearts and minds of the local population. And if you don't win the hearts and minds of the people, you can't win the war.
"If we were on a joint counter-terrorist operation, for example, we would radio back to our headquarters that we were not going to detain certain people because, as far as we were concerned, they were not a threat because they were old men or obviously farmers, but the Americans would say 'no, bring them back'.
"The Americans had this catch-all approach to lifting suspects. The tactics were draconian and completely ineffective. The Americans were doing things like chucking farmers into Abu Ghraib [the notorious prison in Baghdad where US troops abused and tortured Iraqi detainees] or handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well they were going to be tortured.
"The Americans had a well-deserved reputation for being trigger happy. In the three months that I was in Iraq, the soldiers I served with never shot anybody. When you asked the Americans why they killed people, they would say 'we were up against the tough foreign fighters'. I didn't see any foreign fighters in the time I was over there.
"I can remember coming in off one operation which took place outside Baghdad, where we had detained some civilians who were clearly not insurgents, they were innocent people. I couldn't understand why we had done this, so I said to my troop commander 'would we have behaved in the same way in the Balkans or Northern Ireland?' He shrugged his shoulders and said 'this is Iraq', and I thought 'and that makes it all right?'
"As far as I was concerned that meant that because these people were a different colour or a different religion, they didn't count as much. You can not invade a country pretending to promote democracy and behave like that." [Telegraph]
These are the words, not of a pundit, a partisan, or a peacenik, but of conscientious professional soldier. He waited until is first tour of duty in Iraq was over, and he was back in Britain, before deciding to risk a public statement. When he finally did so,
Mr Griffin expected to be placed under arrest, labelled a coward, court-martialed and imprisoned for daring to air such views.
Instead, however, he was allowed to leave the Army with his exemplary military record intact and with a glowing testimonial from his commanding officer, who described him as a "balanced and honest soldier who possesses the strength and character to genuinely have the courage of his convictions". [Telegraph]
If the disturbing
Abu Ghraib photos were not enough to convince America that something was not quite right with her military foray into Iraq, Mr. Griffin's testimony may shake our denial sufficiently by framing the abuses in a more comprehensive context. Taken as a whole, the attitudes of the Bush administration together with the attitudes and conduct of US forces in Iraq depict a nauseating array of conditions that have set the stage for depravity and human rights abuses. [See also
History of US Torture]
Nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake. Is this who we really are? Are these the values that define us? The demonizing of an 'other'--a whole people--is a very old game, set in motion by the powerful, that allows an abusive enviroment to flourish. It is nothing more than a means to an end, providing a faux justification for devaluing and destroying human beings, and serving the petty interest of those in power.
Decent Americans have been snookered by the Bush cabal, victims of a
media campaign designed to spread fear. But the result of this near-sighted power and money grab is a world that is increasingly less safe and secure. Ben Griffin's words sum it up nicely:
"I do believe passionately in democracy and I will speak out about things which I think are morally wrong. I think the war in Iraq is a war of aggression and is morally wrong and, more importantly, we are making the situation in the Middle East more unstable. It's not just wrong, it's a major military disaster. There was no plan for what was to happen after Saddam went, no end-game."
1
Untermenschen: a label applied by the Nazis to describe Russians, Jews, and east Europeans during WWII. The term literally translates as "Under Beings".
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