| 20at.com |
US President George Bush said these words in his weekly Radio Address on April 13, 2003, three days after the Americans punched their way into the Iraqi capital. The daily reports coming from Iraq have been proving many other things, except what Mr. Bush said! Many of us followed the Congressional hearings in which US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about the growing scandal of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. We all heard about the apology made by Bush himself for the Iraqi POW abuse, but we are afraid that some routine processes may delay any actual action. We are not going to wait for the results of the investigations with Rumsfeld or with Bush himself. We are waiting for their polices to be changed, so you will not have to ask us again, "why do they hate us "?! You might ask: "What do you want from us"? Actually, we are asking you to do many things, but before we start demanding, let us enumerate the story of the scandal from the beginning: On July 19, 2003, CBS news agency aired a story about the probabilities of suspected torture in Iraq by American authorities; at the same story there was a denial statement made by Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq: "We are in fact, in fact, carrying out our international obligations, which I'm satisfied we are doing". These words were proved to be "lies", when the CBS News station at "60 MinutesII " showed some of the pictures that led to the Army investigation. It was really weird when the Donald H. Rumsfeld assured us in his last testimony that his department knew all about the sadistic abuse of detainees since last January, especially after he avoided answering a question concerning the same issue at his interview with the NBC, which made the most famous daily newspaper at the United States, ""The Washington post"" say in its editorial on May 5,2003 that the mistreatment held by US military or intelligence forces abroad has been reported. A pattern of arrogant disregard for the Geneva Conventions or any other legal procedure has been set from the top, by Mr. Rumsfeld and senior U.S. commanders. Another report issued on March 3, 2004 by the US department of defense proves that the American administration knew about all those violations. The report included information proving that between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. British newspaper The Independent mentioned February 14, 2004 that five American soldiers had driven a 19-year-old Iraqi civilian to his death in the Tigris River; The Iraqi was allegedly taken with his cousin to a remote spot on the shore and ordered into the river at gunpoint. When they refused, the soldiers forced him into the river. The victim, who could not swim, drowned in the strong current. His cousin survived to tell the story. As for Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversaw Abu Ghraib prison, she mentioned in an interview with St. Petersburg Times December 14, 2003 that the inmates of Abu Gharib were "civilian prisoners" and for many the "living conditions now are better in prison than at home". "At one point we were concerned they wouldn't want to leave". According to the New Yorker Newspaper (April 30,2004), Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, one of the sergeants in the Torturing Photos, repeatedly noted In letters and e-mails to family members that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. The military-intelligence officers have "encouraged and told us, 'Great job,' they were now getting positive results and information", Frederick wrote. Another good reason proves the support of the American administration to the abuse which took place in "Abou Gharib" prison, as the Human Rights Watch organization reported that the American soldiers accused in the abuse scandal are "Private Contractors", which means that they are civilians not compelled to the military law, the thing which made them free to do what they liked, or to "be used" by their military commands in abusing the detainees to get information from them. Besides the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, The Daily Mirror published May 1,2004 that the British soldiers had their share as well, for it was reported that "moral crimes" have been committed against the Iraqi prisoners, including being kicked, beaten and urinated on by soldiers allegedly from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. As the war on Iraq was from the first beginning illegal, waged away from the UN legitimacy, the abuse of detainees came as a new Anglo-American, severe violation of the UN pacts, especially the Geneva Convention, which declares in Article 37: "Protected persons who are confined pending proceedings or serving a sentence involving loss of liberty shall during their confinement be humanely treated". As to the treatment of detainees, the 100th Article of the Geneva Convention says: "The disciplinary regime in places of internment shall be consistent with humanitarian principles". In addition to the that, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in the 5th Article: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". And while the whole world got outraged at the act of abuse, we, in the Arab World, really were shocked that the 1st address of Mr. Bush was void of "apology", as he only called the abuse "abhorrent", "unknown" to him But, Amnesty International reported what follows: - "In July 2003, Amnesty sent US government a Memorandum on Concerns Relating to Law and Order in Iraq, concerning the torture of detainees in the prisons. - Unfortunately Amnesty has never received a response or any indication from the US administration or the Coalition Provisional Authority that an investigation took place. So, we 're afraid that the American & British Administration is misleading the whole world about what really happened in Iraq. And about the "full accounting" for the abuse of Iraqi detainees, Bush vows abusers will face justice, and asserts that "justice" was only reprimanding six U.S. soldiers over the abuse!! While writing these words, the whole world is still getting one shock after another, still discovering a new crime against the Iraqi detainees, still disgusted by new photos spotlighting an ugly face, which we'd like you to prove it's not the only face of America. You might be shocked if you know that your leaders in Iraq don't permit to the human rights organizations to be aware of what is happening in prisons; but many analysts are asking another shocking question:What about the other secret U.S. prisons?! You might be shocked again if you know HOW THE IRAQIS TREATED THE POWs?! It's ironic that at a time when the whole world is disgusted by pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by Americans, an American doctor in Germany reports that Thomas Hamill was reasonably well-treated by his Iraqi kidnappers - a bullet wound received at the time of Hamill's capture had been treated surgically… Then, we won't be waiting for the results of the Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld testimony, as the abuse case, which might have been existing without the awareness of the US adminstration isn't the only crime the occupation committed against Iraqis. But how about a crime that the American and British administrations, and considerable percentage of the populations of the two countries, decided to commit with cold blood?! How about the crime of "war" which killed 15,000 Iraqi victim?! How about the victims of the "Shock and Awe" plan, the target of which was to awe the Iraqi civilians before the soldiers?! How about the crime of "Pounding Falluja" with 500lb laser-guided cluster bombs by US warplanes, which left 700 Iraqi victim in 12 days?! How about targeting ambulances and hospitals in Falluja. How about the Amnesty report which shows that, in Iraq, after one year of invasion, the human rights situation remains dire: - One year after US-led forces launched war on Iraq, the promise of improved human rights for Iraqis remains far from realized. - Most Iraqis still feel unsafe, face threats to their lives and security. - Violence is endemic. - Millions of people have suffered mass unemployment - And there is little or no confidence that those responsible for past and present human rights abuses will be brought to justice. Indeed, we're afraid that the Bush & Blair administrations succeeded in making the decision of war simple, and as a result, we are all now arguing that the inhuman acts of the occupation forces, and the occupation itself, became "un-arguable" facts! |
They misled the whole world, and lied about their real motivations behind the waged war: They wanted to wage a war for oil - as some say - or maybe for something else we don't know about, but they misled the world when they pretended they had other reasons to go to war for - they couldn't prove those alleged reasons until now: |
In the build-up to the war, President Bush said in (state of union speech), on Thursday, January 28, 2003, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". And just before the war started, in his weekly radio address on the 8th of march 2003, Bush said, "The cause of peace will be advanced only when the terrorists lose a wealthy patron and protector, and when the dictator is fully and finally disarmed". After the war : in an interview Monday night aboard an Air Force jet en route to Washington following a five-day tour of Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said:"Finding the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that President Bush cited as his main justification for going to war is now a secondary issue". Moreover, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said to CBS news that she doubted that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq. The same thing was said by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in an audio interview to the BBC |
Despite the fact that he didn't form a real threat, American forces got rid of Saddam Hussein - the US administration admitted after the war that Saddam didn't own weapons of mass destruction. So why are the coalition forces still in Iraq until this very moment? |
Until this very moment they haven't proven any relation between Al-Qadea and the former Iraqi regime. After all this, we are asking you to speak out, so that they will be able to hear with us what was said by a British soldier:"We're not helping ourselves out here. We're never going to get the Iraqis on our side. We're fighting a losing war". We are afraid that American and British youth will be hated for the deeds of some warmongers. So now what we can do: Let us - youth of the world - demand that the ministries of defense of Coalition countries stop that war: - We want public tribunals in every square, at every capital, for those blood-lovers. - We call on the media to pressure the new war criminals. - We want our voices to be heard, we are saying "stop human rights violations in Iraq" NOW. - Demonstrations everywhere to call for swift withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. - Addressing international organizations like the United Nations and the Security Council, asking them to start acting against the Anglo-American occupation. - Any other way you deem appropriate. |