Saturday, March 05, 2005

They shoot journalists, don't they?

Today, Reuters reports that the kidnapped Italian reporter (who was very anti-war) was freed in Iraq. Unfortunately, US troops shot on the car she was riding in while the car was approaching a checkpoint. An Italian secret service agent, who had secured her release, was killed. The editor of the paper where the journalist worked had this to say: "A tragic demonstration which we never wanted that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad." Later news said that the Italian Prime Minister called the Ambassador from the US to a meeting. This is going to be big. Maybe the Italian forces will pull out of Iraq over this incident - one thing for sure: if the US authorities do not handle it correctly (and they never do!) it will seriously damage official US-Italian relationships.

It is, in my opinion, a clear example of the idiotic stupidity of invading Iraq to free them with bombs and bullets. An innocent is captured by the "resistance", then is finally freed, then is almost killed by the US forces in the country. I don't blame the troops much. I think they are quite trigger-happy, but that is because they want to go home alive themselves. It does underscore the fact that the American troops in that country are not a stabilizing force, they are exactly the opposite.

I place all blame for this terrible incident on Mr. Bush and his policies.

There has been repeated cases of journalists in Iraq being killed by the resistance (if that is what they are) and the US troops. The official "investigations" of the killings by US troops were weak indeed. I don't think this is a case of a journalist being targeted, and I doubt most of the other ones are either. I think it is simply that the journalists are being treated just like regular Iraqis, and little regard is given to taking measures to protect them from harm. The US authorities just don't care what happens to the Iraqi people, and make no effort to keep them safe or provide for their needs. If the US authorities cared about the Iraqis, they would note their deaths, their injuries, when their property is damaged or destroyed, they would not tolerate for one minute any torture or abuse-- and they would make all this information public, and their sincere apologies very public. This is not happening.

Mr. Bush is bringing the Iraqi people the freedom of the grave and the democracy of death. What happened to that Italian secret service agent has happened to thousands of Iraqi citizens.

I was trying to show a story about a check-point shooting in Tal Afar to the women who cuts my hair today (and this was before I heard about the other killing). This one happened in January. A picture of a little girl screaming, with blood on her hands, was on the front page of newspapers around the world on January 20th, 2005. Her parents were shot at a checkpoint. But it was not reported by US newspapers. It was ignored by them. Instead, they had pictures of a jubilant Mr. Bush on his inauguration day. As I was showing this story and the pictures to the women who cuts my hair, she said "I don't want to dwell on the negative" which really means "I don't want to know what is going on". She does not what to hear what her government is doing. And yet she claims to be a Christian, and she is an intelligent women.

I was dismayed at her response, and her other responses to my talk of the torture of Iraqi prisoners - she brought up talk about how Iraqi men beat their wife or wives... I'm sure there is domestic violence in Iraq, but what that has to do with sadistic sexual torture by US troops is beyond me. This women also claims that God will punish those who have done wrong.... but she does not seem to realize that by paying US taxes, she (and I) have done serious wrong in the world. By allowing our government to start up a war for no good reason, and then allow our troops to stay there when their presence is only making the situation worse, is also a serious wrong. It is evil.

It is US troops that are mainly killing the Iraqis. We hear about the "insurgents" and the terrorists who kill Iraqis, yet we don't hear about the multiple checkpoint killings every day. We don't hear about the dead from our daily bombings. We don't hear about the dead from the fighting in Fallujah or Najaf. Nowadays, we don't even hear about Ramadi or Hit or Samaria being "liberated" for the third or fourth time. And that's because the US public does not want to know.

there is none so blind as those who will not see.......

I am sad that the Italian agent was killed. I am sadder still that this happens dozens of times every day in Iraq, to ordinary Iraqi citizens who have done nothing wrong. I am sadder still that no one bothers to count or notice these dead.

there is none so blind as those who will not see.......

No comments: