Antiwar.com Blog

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael C. Anderson, along with four other soldiers, died in a mortar attack outside of Fallujah. His mother desperately asks:

“What is a builder doing there, staying in a hot spot? He shouldn’t have been there. How do they explain that? . . . I think they’re running out of soldiers.”

Anderson was a part of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14, which is based in Jacksonville, Fla., on mission “fixing sewage problems and electrical and water systems in Iraq.” Strange that non-combat Marines would be fixing things in a besieged city that was for a few weeks under American bombardment. Perhaps Anderson’s mother is right. It would explain the recent announcement that 47,000 more troops are headed for Iraq.

And so the US’s descent from the moral pedestal it once occupied is now complete.

The United States walked out of a UN meeting Tuesday to protest its decision minutes later to give Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission, the world body’s human rights watchdog.

US Ambassador Sichan Siv called the vote an “absurdity” and accused Sudan of massive human rights violations and “ethnic cleansing” in the western Darfur region.

As Siv walked out of the Economic and Social Council chamber, Sudan’s deputy UN Ambassador Omar Bashir Manis launched into a heated response, accusing American forces of engaging in degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners, using disproportionate force and committing “atrocities” against innocent Iraqi civilians.

But the United States’ seat in the chamber was empty, and no American diplomat was there to hear it.
[…]
“It is yet very ironic that the United States delegation, while shedding crocodile tears over the situation in Darfur … is turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the American forces against the innocent civilian population in Iraq, including women and children,” he said.

Manis also cited “the brutal attacks against innocent civilians in Fallujah where for the first time in our lives we saw live reporting of mass graves — women, children and elderly and other innocent civilians buried in a football stadium” and the “infamous and degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison.” So Sudan’s seat on the Human Rights Commission “is not at all different” from the US presence, Manis said.

Well, they do have a point, don’t they? Americans might as well get used to this sort of thing now that the Bushies and neocons have dragged us all through the slime with their reprehensible Iraq invasion and occupation.

From Breaking News.ie:

As President George Bush appeared on Arabic television today in a bid to limit the damage caused by photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, a new image emerged which would shock the world.

A photograph from an internal military report into mistreatment of prisoners, and leaked to a US magazine, showed the battered corpse of a prisoner.

In the picture, obtained by the New Yorker magazine, the dead inmate was wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice.

Another photograph showed an empty room at the Abu Ghraib prison – centre of the scandal – splattered with blood.

The good news from Iraq just keeps rolling in. The left image is the new one. The image on the right was from 60 minutes II.

when not-quite-white terrorists defeated their more civilized occupiers! Aka, Cinco de Mayo.

Here’s an update to this post about the “private contractor” working for the CIA in Iraq murdering an Iraqi. Amazingly, there’s another one – and a murder a CIA officer is thought to have committed.

The AP reports:

In addition, the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners already have been ruled homicides, the Army said Tuesday. In one case, a soldier was court-martialed, reduced in rank and discharged from the Army. In the other case, a CIA contract interrogator’s conduct has been referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, the Army said.

Meanwhile, an intelligence official said Wednesday that the CIA inspector general is investigating two other deaths involving CIA interrogators. One took place at an Afghan prison near the Pakistan border in June 2003 and involved an independent contractor working for the CIA. The other death occurred at another, unspecified location in Iraq and involved a CIA interrogator, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

That means that in total, U.S. officials have acknowledged two prisoner deaths they consider to be homicides, and have ongoing investigations into another 12 deaths.

A recurring feature in which we take a look at U.S. occupations around the globe, via the viciously anti-American Stars & Stripes. Story #1:

Ramstein airmen face courts-martial on indecent assault charges

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Two Ramstein Air Base airmen face courts-martial this month on charges of indecent assault stemming from an incident in a base dormitory. …

The two airmen allegedly committed the offenses against one female victim on Aug. 15 in an on-base dormitory, Young said.

Eh, the Nazi Kraut had it coming. Next up:

Two sailors indicted in connection with theft of fishing boat in Japan

SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — The Nagasaki Prosecutor’s Office, Sasebo Branch, indicted two USS Fort McHenry sailors Friday in connection with the April 12 theft of a fishing boat.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler Montayne Dutcher, 21, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon James Kelley, 20, were arrested April 12 when they were discovered inside the stolen boat after allegedly running the craft aground.

The indictment charges them in the theft of the boat and endangering traffic through negligence, according to a Japanese news report.

The indictment alleges that the two sailors stole the boat, worth about $139,000, around midnight April 12 while it was moored at in Kashimae Cho. It says they took the boat on a 40-minute joyride, then ran it aground damaging several parts.

Shortly after their arrest, an Ainoura police spokesman said the key was in the ignition when the sailors boarded the boat owned by a local seafood company.

Well, come on, the key was in the ignition! Boys will be boys! This sort of thing happens at fraternity houses all the time! Speaking of which:

Alleged Okinawa intruder reportedly many times over legal intoxication limit

OKINAWA CITY, Okinawa — Okinawa prefectural police said they were holding in custody Monday a U.S. Marine for illegally entering an off-base apartment Sunday.

Cpl. Jerry R. Campbell Jr., 25, was arrested for trespassing at 5:20 a.m., as he stood outside the apartment in the Yaejima district of Okinawa City, a police spokesman said.

According to the police report, Campbell, a Camp Schwab-based Marine who tested nearly seven times the legal limit for public intoxication in Japan, wandered into a ground-floor apartment.

The 45-year-old woman living in the apartment said that after hearing a noise, she turned on the living room light and saw Campbell standing in the middle of the floor clad only in a T-shirt. …

Police officers found Campbell’s wallet, pants and soiled underwear in a flowerbed at the apartment complex, the police spokesman said.

Ingrates!