The story I repeatedly heard about mass graves when I first started coming to Iraq in 2006 was as follows. At the edge of Sadr City there was a dumpsite. In that dumpsite lived a local drunk. And gunmen from the Mahdi Army would bring him bodies of the Sunnis they had killed for burial, plying him with booze to do the ugly work of putting them in the ground. The rumored gravesite even had a nickname, Happiness Hotel. The drunk, I took it, was supposed to be the innkeeper.
I never had the nerve to properly investigate the rumor. Doing so would have likely put me and my Iraqi colleagues at risk of death threats or worse from Shi’ite militiamen. But the story always disturbed me, because it struck me as plausible.
The newest U.N. human rights report on Iraq points to six recently uncovered mass graves, including one containing 17 bodies at the edge of Sadr City. More mass graves are sure to be uncovered in Iraq in the months and years to come. Whether Happiness Hotel is ever found remains to be seen. But every corpse unearthed in or near Shi’ite militia havens raises the question of culpability in mass murder by the Iraqi government, which abetted the Mahdi Army during the height of the sectarian violence. That same government is still in power now, as U.S. forces prepare to hand over control of the streets across the country to Iraqi security forces whose future human rights practices remain an open question.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
If the Iraqi government was complicit, guilty, and it surely was, then also was the government of the U.S.A. and surely U.S. military commanders in Iraq. After all, the Iraqi government was basically made into a puppet government most controlled by the U.S.
The same awfully remains too true today.
Pointing our fingers at the Iraqi government and not at the U.S. is to be refusing to take logs out of our eyes. So let's get rid of these logs.
Every serious crime due to the Iraqi government are due to the government of the U.S.A., as well as its so-called coalition allies; perhaps also to some degree the U.N., for its duty should have always been to oppose and remain totally opposed to this war, so once it was launched and G.W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" during Spring 2003, the U.N. should have immediately demanded for U.S. (et al) withdrawal. Instead, the U.N. is guilty for abetting the wholly criminal U.S. (et al) occupation of Iraq.
Many logs need to be taken out of many eyes, it seems!
Mike Corbeil
Unfortunately, the murders occured, at times bordering on genocide depending on one's definition. I state this as fact from direct observation. I used to count the bodies floating down the Diyala and Crescent River.
Is their culpability? That's a matter for another debate. Currently, I submit that the real question is what is the lesson learned? What should we be doing in the World? How much can we affect/effect other societies?
I find it ironic that some would suggest that President Obama is trying to socially re-engineer American Society, but they are more than content to try and re-engineer other societies.
Then again, I'm just a grunt that jumps outta airplanes and banged my head one too many times. What do I know?
v/r
Mike Few
Post a Comment