Breaking news: I don't believe the military. Or the FBI. Or the DHS. Or anyone in George Bush's administration. If I hear from any of these quarters that the sun is shining, I'll look outside to fact check the bastards.
Truth may indeed be like an onion. You have to peel layers, do some investigation, to reveal the inner core of things, to get to the heart of the matter. But our military, under Secretary of Deception Donald Rumsfeld, is like a rug. IT LIES.
The heartbreaking news out of Mahmoudiya in Iraq is just the latest story. How old is the female who was raped? Let's not believe the neighbors or local witnesses. Now comes the military to investigate (hold your breath waiting for the truth if you look good blue). And how does the friggin FBI have "documents that estimate her age at 25"? Now the FBI has documents on local civilians in Iraq, ready to roll out at a moment's notice? Forgive me if my bullshit detector just went fucking haywire.
Remember Abu Ghraib?
Oh, no, we weren't doing anything wrong at Abu Ghraib. Vicious rumors. You wanna provide aid and comfort to the terrorists? You wanna put our troops in harm's way? Oh ... sorry. A few rogue soldiers. Low on the totem pole. No big deal.
... Numerous critics--not just in the human-rights community, but in Congress and the U.S. military as well--insist that the current probes are still too limited to bring full accountability. Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating information from coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's inquiries and shielding higher-ups from investigation. Documents obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's aides are trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon. Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that the leak is being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned his office into a "ministry of fear," says one military lawyer. A spokesman for Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified computers.
Ministry of fear indeed. Well, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that just about everything we hear from the DOD and the military is pure, 100 percent, lab-tested, unadulterated BULLSHIT.
Continuing from the Abu Ghraib story:
More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is investigating itself. Maj. Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army Military Intelligence, is in charge of the probe into whether his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners. But so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel, military and other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was formerly in military intelligence at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent weeks that the Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I was adding to his burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week. "There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been talked to."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Then there was Haditha
Oh, shit, we were just protecting ourselves. Damn IEDs were coming at us, these were insurgents ... oh, you got photos? Shit. Well, we did go inside some houses. You know, gotta root out the bad guys and all. There were dead kids? Really? You say you got photos?
The anchorperson for al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, interviewed journalist Walid Khalid in Bahgdad. Khalid's report, translated by MidEastWire.com, was as follows:
Yesterday evening, an explosive charge went off under a US Marines vehicle in the al-Subhani area, destroying it completely. Half an hour later, the US reaction was violent. US aircraft bombarded four houses near the scene of the incident, causing the immediate death of five Iraqis. Afterward, the US troops stormed three adjacent houses where three families were living near the scene of the explosion. Medical sources and eyewitnesses close to these families affirmed that the US troops, along with the Iraqi Army, executed 21 persons; that is, three families, including nine children and boys, seven women, and three elderly people.
Contrast this to the reportage of the slaughter by the New York Times, the "newspaper of note" in the United States. Unquestioningly parroting the military press release, their story of November 21, 2005, read: "The Marine Corps said Sunday that 15 Iraqi civilians and a Marine were killed Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The bombing on Saturday in Haditha, on the Euphrates in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, was aimed at a convoy of American Marines and Iraqi Army soldiers, said Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman. After the explosion, gunmen opened fire on the convoy. At least eight insurgents were killed in the firefight, the captain said."
Now we have the rape and murder in Mahmoudiya.
Ex-Soldier Charged With Raping Iraqi, Killing Family
Charlotte, N.C. (AP) -- Federal prosecutors accused a former U.S. soldier Monday of raping and murdering a young Iraqi woman and gunning down her family, all of whose bodies were found burned in an apparent cover-up.
Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former Army private first class, who was recently discharged because of a "personality disorder," appeared Monday in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte.
The murder and rape charges against him grew out of a military investigation involving as many as five soldiers in the alleged rape and killing of a young woman in Mahmoudiya. Three of the woman's relatives were also killed in the incident -- one of them a girl believed to be about 5.
Prosecutors said that Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where Green shot the three relatives, then he and another soldier raped the woman and killed her. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators in March showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."
Of course, the military and the pandering AP are choosing to call her "a woman." As if it makes that much difference, but then, you know it does. A 14 or 15 year old girl in this country is a child, for chrissakes. The military doesn't like the negative public relations that comes from CHILD RAPISTS, so let's call her A YOUNG WOMAN. So, it dissembles. How novel.
Continuing from AP's story:
The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad Fadhil, said Monday that Iraqi authorities had started their own investigation. He said U.S. Army officers were also seeking permission to exhume one of the bodies; the U.S. military declined to comment on the report because the investigation is ongoing.
The age of the rape victim was also unclear. U.S. officials close to the case have described her as a young woman, and FBI documents estimated her age at 25, but a neighbor of the family said the rape victim was 14 and her sister was 10.
http://www.npr.org/...
"The U.S. military declined to comment on the report because the investigation is ongoing." You betcha it is. An investigation of how best to lie. Hide the evidence. Fudge the facts. Silence the locals. Pay off the relatives. Saddle up to some journalists. Threaten the New York Times. BLOW SMOKE UP ALL OF OUR ASSES.
The military just sent me an e-mail. The brass says the sun is shining. Excuse me while I go get my umbrella. The shitstorm cometh.