[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 32.

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Op vrijdag 2 juni 2006 10:16 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:
en het verval van het Amerikaans leger gaat door:


US probes new Iraq massacre claim -

[[url=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41715000/gif/_41715524_iraq_ishaqi_map203.gif]afbeelding]

The US military has told the BBC it is investigating an incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians may have been deliberately killed by US troops. [/url]

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 09:47 schreef klez het volgende:

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Die quote...wat een gelul.
Het gaat nu slecht in Oost-Europa, die stoute Amerikanen hebben het communistische paradijs doen instorten.
Goed voor je geloofwaardigheid.

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“The pattern is repeated time after time in every imperialist so-called counter-insurgency war; for behind each and every one lurks the reality of exploitation and class war, and, as successive imperialist powers have shown, the bottom line in combating the hopes and dreams of ordinary people is to resort to spreading terror through the application of extreme violence.”

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Op vrijdag 2 juni 2006 23:00 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

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The truth is out there in front of you, but they lay out this buffet of lies; Fake Soldier Confession Video Runs As Cover For Real Slaughter

Pff, de journalistiek viert opzich wel hoogtijdagen

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Gnome plot uncovered



The case is finally closed for a Nelson police officer who has been receiving letters from his garden gnome - all the way from Mauritius and Singapore.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Wayne Johnston, who launched an unofficial inquiry to find the people behind the gnome's activities, said it had been a rough four months since "Gnomie" appeared and then disappeared from his garden.

Mr Johnston has discovered he's been lied to, deceived and even stalked by close friends, who confessed in a book of photographic evidence to the joke.

The friends have given the book to Mr Johnston as a memento of the prank. Photos of the group placing the gnome in Mr Johnston's garden and taking it away again are included along with "witness statements" and "offence reports".

Mr Johnston has found he was even photographed outside Nelson District Court three weeks ago when Gnomie returned from his travels with another gnome in a $147,000 Lexus car.

Mr Johnston said a friend helped him with his inquiry and it turned out she had also been in on the joke the entire time.

"I was made to look a goose," he said.

Others had jumped on the bandwagon, and at one point there were 22 gnomes in his garden, some of which were receiving Christmas cards.

"They're getting more Christmas cards than I am."

While Mr Johnston was down to four gnomes, a pink flamingo had recently appeared, although this time he was certain he knew how it got there.

"I've learned a few things out of this. For starters, believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. Trust no one, and don't look very far for suspects."

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***************************************
Pentagon:geen wangedrag in Ishaqi

***************************************
` Er is geen sprake van dat Amerikaanse
militairen in de Iraakse stad Ishaqi
moedwillig burgers hebben gedood.Die
conclusie trekt het Pentagon uit een
eigen onderzoek.

De BBC toonde gisteren beelden waaruit
zou blijken dat de Amerikanen in Ishaqi
zes volwassenen en vijf kinderen hebben
doodgeschoten.Het Pentagon zegt dat de
militairen hebben gehandeld volgens de
regels.Toen ze vanuit een huis onder
vuur werden genomen,schoten ze terug.

Het incident in Ishaqi staat los van de
gebeurtenissen in Haditha.Amerikaanse
militairen zouden zich daar schuldig
hebben gemaakt aan oorlogsmisdaden

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 00:24 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 00:55 schreef gronk het volgende:
Gelukkig is er niets aan de hand!
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Hebben onze helden uit de tweede wereldoorlog toch die morele superioriteit van toen niet verleerd.
't Pentagon zegt 't zelf, dus 't moet wel waar zijn!

Nou, dat wordt weer rustig slapen zometeen

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"Iraq Safer Than Washington DC"

Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it's significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation's capital.

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 01:03 schreef Sebastral het volgende:

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Op vrijdag 2 juni 2006 23:46 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

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Op het moment even niet zo wakker, was ik aanvankelijk ook gevallen voor die video van Jessie MacBeth. Mijn redenatie was dat die stotterende vent zo'n halfgare indruk maakte dat het wel authentiek moest zijn. Werd er door anderen gelukkig al snel gewezen dat het een fabricage was. Goede les om even weer herrinerd te worden aan hoe verradelijk disinfo kan zijn.

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A US military investigation has found there was no misconduct by US troops over Iraqi civilian deaths in the town of Ishaqi, a spokesman says.

Maj Gen William Caldwell said reports that troops "executed" a family during a raid on a house in March and tried to cover it up were "absolutely false".

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 12:26 schreef Monidique het volgende:
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Ik denk dus dat er geen sprake is van executies en daarin kan het leger dan gelijkhebben, maar ook wordt ontkend dat het gebouw niet is opgeblazen om de vermeende executies te verdoezelen. Dit zou een woordspelletje kunnen zijn, omdat ze niet ontkennen het gebouw te hebben opgeblazen om fouten te verdoezelen.

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US commanders knew Haditha deaths from gunfire: NYT

Marine commanders in Iraq knew within two days of the killings in Haditha in November that gunfire, not a roadside bomb, had killed Iraqi civilians but they saw no reason to investigate further, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

A senior Marine officer told the Times that commanders informed investigators they had not viewed the early discrepancies in accounts about how the two dozen Iraqis died as unusual, and that they had no information at the time suggesting that any civilians had been killed deliberately.

But a senior Marine general familiar with the investigation told the newspaper "It's impossible to believe they didn't know," referring to mid-level and senior officers. "You'd have to know this thing stunk," the general, who was granted anonymity along with others who described the investigation, was quoted as saying.

The general also told the Times that it had not yet been determined just how high up the chain of command culpability for the killings went. He also said there were strong suspicions that some officers knew that the Marine squad's version of the incident had enough holes and discrepancies that it should have been questioned and investigated more fully.

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Despite the Bushite media's insistence that there is some kind of liberal conspiracy to hype violence in Iraq and make the administration look incompetent, the reality is that the turmoil is indicative of a complete success on the part of Bush and his handlers.

Neo-conservative and Israeli strategy documents dating back to the eighties describe an agenda to break up Iraq into different sectarian factions and promote inter-Arab conflict.

From that perspective the quagmire is exactly what the PNAC warmongers desire and the left-wing and progressive blog sites should avow themselves of this information if they wish to truly understand what is unfolding in Iraq.

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 11:08 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Met disinfo bedoel je waarschijnlijk niet dat het een aandachtsgeile leugenaar is die het allemaal op eigen houtje heeft bedacht, neem ik aan, maar waarom zou dat gewoon niet het geval kunnen zijn?

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Op zaterdag 3 juni 2006 12:26 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Ik denk dus dat er geen sprake is van executies

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Rumor of the day.
There's one rumor in Baghdad these days that has become so big and spread beyond the normal limits of rumors…

This rumor speaks of an American plot, namely one of President Bush to orchestrate a military coup in Iraq, install a Pervez Musharraf-like general as head of state with a treaty signed between the US and the general to guarantee an honorable pull out from Iraq as well as Iraq's loyalty to the US to prepare for America's exit from the country and that this coup is to be carried out by the Iraqi army under command of a Sunni general from the former army since the American administration-according the rumor-believes officers of the former army are the only ones capable of understanding and controlling the security situation in Iraq.

It seems that this rumor in particular was created by a pro; he made a long and somewhat convincing (to the less informed) story on the origin of this coup scenario; the rumor says that President Bush was advised by former national Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzenzinski to give Sunni officers a free hand in Iraq to control the security situation and according to the rumor, this meeting of Bush and Zbigniew Brzenzinski was written about in the New York Times!
Of course I didn't even bother to search for such a Brzenzinski statement or NY Times report as the story in its entirety sounds illogical.

It's saddening to see people supposed to be politicians and leaders take such rumors and consider them solid facts. On one hand you'll see Sunni former officers and politicians daydream about how they're going to rule the country after their coup succeeds, which means it encourages the acts of armed resistance and discourages people from being involved in the system since it predicts that it's only a matter of time before the current system collapses and on the other hand you'll see Shia politicians use this rumor to justify a prolonged existence of their partisan militias, actually I heard Sadiq al-Mousawi (prominent Shia politician and former advisor of president Talbani) use this pretext in his argument on the necessity to keep the militias on a talk show last night.

It's really odd to see the same rumor promoted by both, the government and the opposition but that's understandable as both sides found in this rumor what can serve their interests.

This reflects that there's still a big chunk of the population here in the Middle East that is having a hard time believing that the change has happened, understanding democracy and throwing behind the old conspiracy theory mentalities; a tough but essential struggle for establishing a new system.

What worries me a lot is hearing people in Iraq in particular and in the Middle East in general saying that this region not good enough a land for democracy and that these countries will always need dictators to put things in order and preserve security and stability; these are remarks I hear all the time and some even go as far as saying that Saddam's reign was good for Iraq.

The indisputable fact is that dictatorship did not lead us to become an advanced nation and I never heard of a dictatorship that was able to make a nation free and advanced and the results we reached from decades of dictatorship was nothing we could ever be proud of.

Some here say that Saddam managed to control the country but they admit he was bad and they think that if only he looked after economy better than he did then things would've been way better…maybe the common dream among my people of generation is to become the one good ruler who can fix all the mistakes of the previous bad rulers but reality proves that everyone who came to power in any of the earlier nationalist tyrannical governments turned out to be "bad".
In fact this has nothing to do with the individuals in power and perhaps that's the core of the problem; here in the Middle East we need to understand that it's all about the system we choose for our countries and we're yet to absorb this.

For example if a person like Saddam got appointed in an important position in a democratic state then the system will guide him and keep him on track and of course dismiss him if he misbehaves; of course democratic systems are not perfect and error-free but they are better than no systems (chaos) or the systems we had here.

And vice versa…if you bring a "good" person from a democratic state into this region and appoint him in a position of power in a despotic system, he will undoubtedly become bad.
I may not be exaggerating when I say that we have accomplished so much with our newborn democracy and the building of the new system had in one way or another limited from the inclinations of individuals to become bad, even though that's not to the same extent of what we see in states with long history in democracy but these small steps are certainly better than nothing.

The important point here which should be taken into consideration is that we are not forming a government but we are forming a state and a system from scratch so naturally the difficulties we'll face during each stage will be much bigger than the difficulties that would face other states that are already democratic during similar stages, say after elections.

Patience and hard work are the key to victory and in the same time obstacles, violence and disputes are no excuse for quitting; just like al-Qaeda and its allies concentrate on Iraq and consider it the nucleus for their Islamic state, we and the whole world must unite to rescue Iraq and present our model of freedom and justice.

Iraq is the key to the change and the terrorists realize this so we must show how determined we are if we want to defeat them.

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Op zondag 4 juni 2006 10:20 schreef klez het volgende:
Moet vast goed voelen om in het kamp te zitten van de vijanden van deze kerel, de vijanden die de Amerikanen overal de schuld van willen geven, en de betrekkelijke rust van de laatste jaren onder Saddam terug willen (inclusief een "sterke man").
Democratie is maar niets, tenslotte...

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Op zondag 4 juni 2006 13:55 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Bedoel je weer eens "boehoe Europa zit vol met terroristenliefhebbende fascistjes en iedereen die kritiek op de oorlog heeft is een Europese (franse!) fatalistische lafaard boehoe", of nu toch iets anders?

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Op zondag 4 juni 2006 14:59 schreef klez het volgende:

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Nee hoor, niet iedereen. Maar een aantal mensen hier is aardig triest aan het worden in zijn pogingen zelfs de duitse SS als een resultaat van Amerikaanse "secret ops" te zien.
Niemand in Irak schiet iets op met de conspiracy onzin die hier wortel aan het schieten is.

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Op zondag 4 juni 2006 10:20 schreef klez het volgende:
Gelukkig zijn er nog steeds genoeg Irakis die zien waar het werkelijke probleem ligt: De Arabische elite die geweld, domheid, haat jegens het westen/Israel en religie als essentiele ingredienten beschouwd om zichzelf te verrijken en de bevolking onder de knoet te houden. Daarbij moreel gesteund door Europese "intellectuelen" en immigranten die pogen het westen de schuld voor alle ellende in de schoenen te schuiven...
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http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

Moet vast goed voelen om in het kamp te zitten van de vijanden van deze kerel, de vijanden die de Amerikanen overal de schuld van willen geven, en de betrekkelijke rust van de laatste jaren onder Saddam terug willen (inclusief een "sterke man").
Democratie is maar niets, tenslotte...

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Interview with Samir Adil of the Iraqi Freedom Congress

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The enemy is the American administration’s policies and the political Islamism policy, and we have to work together to build this front from Washington to Baghdad to end all of these inhuman policies. We believe without this international movement, especially in the United States, we can’t defeat these inhuman policies and establish a secular and non-nationalist government.

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BW: Tell us about the activities of the Iraqi Freedom Congress and some of the member organizations.

SA: Especially last month, after February 22-<>I think everybody heard about the explosion of the Shi’a holy places-after that date, all of the leaders of the parties that are pro-America escaped from the cities and went to the Green Zone. Only the leaders of our organization, the IFC, have stayed in the cities to mobilize people. We issued a statement that met with a wide response: “No Sunni, no Shi’a, we believe in human identity.” Ordinary people distributed hundreds of thousands of copies in the streets.

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Op zaterdag 27 mei 2006 15:41 schreef LXIV het volgende:

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Vergis je niet in de impact die 'My Lai' had op de oorlog. De VS zijn nooit werkelijk militair verslagen in Vietnam, het is de publieke opinie geweest die de terugtrekking uiteindelijk afdwong. Naast My Lai natuurlijk de beroemde foto van het meisje na het napalm-incident, het Tet-offensief, de foto van de executie van die Vietnamees etc. Hierdoor veranderde de kijk van de publieke opinie op de oorlog, en moest uiteindelijk teruggetrokken worden.

De oorlog in Irak is al druk bezig om een soortgelijke beeldenrij op te bouwen. Amerika zal nooit militair verslagen kunnen worden door vier miljoen Sunni's. Maar juist wel door allerlei incidenten die in de media komen.

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Pages in category "United States government propaganda organisations"
There are 11 pages in this section of this category.

O
Office of Public Diplomacy
Office of Strategic Influence
R
Radio Free Afghanistan
R cont.
Radio Free Asia
Radio Free Europe
Radio Martí
T
TV Martí
U
United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command
United States Information Agency
United States Office of War Information
V
Voice of America

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Op maandag 5 juni 2006 19:11 schreef atmosphere1 het volgende:

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Dat klopt , daarom zijn er na Vietnam ook maatregelen genomen om verspreiding van dergelijk fotomateriaal in de toekomst zoveel mogelijk te voorkomen.
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Op maandag 5 juni 2006 21:18 schreef LXIV het volgende:

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In deze tijd van internet is het tegengaan van verspreiding van dergelijk fotomateriaal totaal onmogelijk geworden. Zelfs wanneer een staat de totale controle over de reguliere media heeft, hetgeen in de VS geenszins het geval is, zal voor hem ongewenste informatie alsnog via het internet verspreid worden.
Hetzelfde geldt voor leugens die verspreid worden door de reguliere media. Op het internet worden deze in het algemeen al snel ontmaskerd, waarna de reguliere media haar bewering wel terug moet trekken.

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Op maandag 5 juni 2006 23:24 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

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Klopt. En dat is een goed ding. Maar de regeringen en overheden hebben sinds My Lai ook 30 jaar de tijd gehad om te bestuderen hoe de effecten die van dit soort gebeurtenissen tegen te gaan. Destijds, tegen het einde van Vietnam oorlog, waren ze de controle op de situatie totaal kwijt, zover is het nu nog lang niet.

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Op maandag 5 juni 2006 23:25 schreef LXIV het volgende:

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Maar de ervaring leert dat dezelfde fouten keer op keer op keer opnieuw gemaakt worden. Dus wanhoopt niet!

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Op maandag 5 juni 2006 19:11 schreef atmosphere1 het volgende:

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Dat klopt , daarom zijn er na Vietnam ook maatregelen genomen om verspreiding van dergelijk fotomateriaal in de toekomst zoveel mogelijk te voorkomen.
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na 11 september werd het Office of Strategic Influence in het leven geroepen,met als doel het verspreiden van misleidende informatie. Toen dit bekend werd ,en er veel kritiek op kwam heeft Rumsfelt gewoon de naam van dit bureau geschrapt ,maar de activiteiten gingen gewoon (onder de naam van een andere office)door . Dit heeft Rumsfelt gewoon verklaard.

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Probe of Haditha massacre must go to top: US lawmakers

AFP | June 4 2006

A US probe of an alleged massacre of civilians in Haditha, Iraq must go beyond accused Marines and up the military command to rule out any possibility of a cover-up, US lawmakers said Sunday.

"The test will be whether the leadership in the Department of Defense and in the administration does not try to ... say it was just a few Marines or a few soldiers, but looks to see if this is part of a larger systemic problem," Senator Jack Reed told "Fox News Sunday."

Meanwhile, Senator Carl Levin told CNN's "Late Edition" program: "There is a real possibility of a cover-up."

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Marine's wife: US troops were out of control in Haditha

Raw Story | June 5th 2006

The wife of a Marine staff sergeant from the same battalion accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq told Newsweek that "a total breakdown" in disclipine including drug and alcohol abuse may have been partly to blame.

"There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it," said the woman unidentified by Newsweek. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."

On the other hand, in a Time Magazine cover story about the Haditha killings (Registration required link), a freelance photoghapher who spent five months in Iraq traveling with Kilo company called it the "most human" unit he embedded with.

"They were never abusive," Lucian Read tells Time. "There was a certain amount of antagonism and frustration when people didn't cooperate. But it's not like they had KILL 'EM ALL spray-painted on the walls."

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Violence against innocent Iraqi civilians is widespread, and it has been for years

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Violence against civilians is “common among many of the multinational forces,” the new Iraqi Prime Minister said. Many troops had “no respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch.”

That the occupation forces do this is well known. “We describe this kind of incident as ‘normal’ because it has happened over and over, not because it is normal or because the Iraqi people accept it,” Iraqi lawyer Nezar al-Samarai told IPS.

“It’s happened a lot and there has been no reaction from the U.S. government to stop it. So people will say it’s normal.”

Nezar al-Samarai knows from experience what he is talking about.

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Haditha: A cover-up of mass murder

The massacre in Haditha is part of the U.S.'s deliberate and unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless nation. The current media hype is an orchestrated propaganda campaign designed to mislead the public and cover up the mass atrocity in Iraq as an “isolated incident by few bad apples." It is the result of an illegal war of aggression based on lies fabricated by the highest levels of the U.S. administration.

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Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule

June 5, 2006

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

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On CNN, congressman accuses Pentagon of trying to cover up Iraq massacre

Raw Story | May 31 2006

Congressman Jack Murtha (D-PA) today accused the Pentagon of covering up the alleged murder of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq on CNN's Situation Room. A brief excerpt of the transcript follows; click to watch the video.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN MURTHA (D-PA): "Well, what I worry about Wolf is [that] this happened six months ago and you heard nothing about it. As a matter of fact, the original story was that an [improvised explosive device] killed these 15 people. It became very confusing to the public. Time Magazine came out with an article and they still tried to cover it up.

"Now, there were payments made to victims which aren't made unless we kill them one way or the other. And secondly, they knew about it the day afterwards...

"And the longer it goes the worse it is for us, because it looks like it's our policy to do something like this...

"This helps [al Qaeda] recruit terrorists."