I mistakenly believed that Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are war criminals was obvious. I will still assume we all understand that "They were only following orders" is not an excuse for individual conduct, but add detail below — from U.S. soldiers — on what standard operating procedure was vis a vis the Afghan and Iraqi resistance and civilians.

WINTER SOLDIER ON THE HILL
CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PUBLIC MEETING

Adam Kokesh:

I was attached to Gulf Company 2-1 in my Civil Affairs Team before the Siege of Fallujah, and we were called with them to support them in the blocking of the two bridges over the Euphrates River on the west side of Fallujah after four Blackwater security agents were killed and had their bodies burned and strung up on the northern bridge in April of 2004. Shortly after arriving there – first slide, please — there was a checkpoint shooting to the west of our position where a man coming home from work at the end of the day did not see the newly-placed Humvee, desert colored, against the desert background manned by Marines wearing desert-colored camouflage, and a Marine there decided that he was approaching at a too fast rate of speed and emptied into the vehicle with a 50-caliber machine gun. We later justified this by saying that hearing the vehicle burning afterwards, there were rounds cooking off from the heat, although it’s clear from this picture and from every other examination that there were no rounds in the vehicle cooking off that would have made punctures in the outer body of the vehicle.

The second round or the round that hit this Iraqi gentleman in the chest hit him so hard that it broke his chair and knocked him back in his seat. Next slide, please. The vehicle was dragged into our compound where we were sleeping. You can see in the background where the vehicles are parked in this picture. This is a picture that I’m very ashamed of, having posed with this dead Iraqi as a trophy picture, but what felt awkward to me at the time was not so much that I was taking a picture, but rather that I had not killed this man and I was taking a trophy of someone else’s kill, and my entire team was present for this, including a Major, and numerous members of my team took similar pictures.

Jason Lemieux:

I was also required to send a count of all ammunition expended with my report. So after conducting my interview and cross-checking their information, I determined that ECB II had received four rounds of poorly-aimed enemy fire and returned fire with thousands of rounds of M-16 ammunition, thousands of rounds of M-240 gulf medium machine gun ammunition, hundreds of rounds of 50-caliber heavy machine gun ammunition, hundreds of rounds of Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher ammunition, several M-203 rifle grenades, a novel explosive rocket, which has a thermobarrick warhead quietly developed by the Marine Corps in the run-up to the initial invasion that is designed to kill or neutralize all personnel inside of a two-story building and has been known to level entire tour-story buildings down to the foundation, and a 120-millimeter main gun round from an Abrams tank, all of which were fired into an area of Tammin known to be owned and occupied by local civilians. One Humvee platoon squad leader even admitted to me that his platoon couldn’t even detect any enemy fire and they were just shooting because ECB-II was shooting. . . .

So as I wrote my report, the Lima Company executive officer came in and asked me to see the report, and of course I obeyed this order, and when he was finished reading, he looked up and said to me, Lemieux, I think your views on this war are affecting your reports. I was taken aback by this claim. So I asked what he meant, and he said here, that the platoon only took four rounds of enemy fire; there’s no way they expended all of that ammo and they only took four rounds.

Now, I was shocked that the executive officer would accuse me of lying and, furthermore, that he did not understand Marines routinely use such excessive force in Iraq, especially the platoon in question. So I informed him that such behavior was, in fact, routine and I had interviewed multiple squad leaders separately and cross-checked their information to confirm the numbers in my report. So after I finished explaining all of this to him, he stared at the report for a moment before saying, We can’t send this report to battalion saying they expended all of that ammo for only four rounds. He then proceeded to sit down at my intelligence computer and falsify the very same report that he had just accused me of falsifying to change the number of enemy rounds that the infantry platoon had reported receiving. I don’t remember the exact number that he changed it to, but it was in the double digits, if not higher.

. . . So to summarize my written testimony, I was involved in fire fights during which the rules of engagement were lifted by the chain of command or were simply ignored, resulting in needless and strategically counterproductive civilian deaths. I was ordered multiple times by commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers to shoot unarmed civilians if their presence made me feel uncomfortable. These orders were given with the understanding that my immediate chain of command would protect their subordinates from legal repercussions.

In my unit, which I believe is representative of most serving in Iraq, the primary loyalty is not to democracy or to the flag or to America or to the Iraqi people or to the rule of law. It is to each other’s safety at the expense of everything else.

Sergio Kochergin:

My second deployment was in the city of Husaybah in the Al Anbar province in the Al Qaim region on the Syrian border. The first thing I want to talk about is the drop weapons. Drop weapons are the weapons that are given to us by our chain of command in case we kill somebody without any weapons, and so that we would not get into trouble, we would carry an AK-47, and if the person that was shot did not have the weapon, an AK-47 would be placed at his corpse, and when the unit would come back to the base, they would turn it in to identify the shot man as an enemy combatant. The weapons could not come from anywhere else but the higher chain of command, because after the raid, all the weapons were turned in to the armory and should have been recorded.

Two months into deployment, our rules of engagement changed to personnel with having a bag and a shovel at the intersection or on the roads, that they were suspicious. This gave us a bigger window on who we could engage. Looking at the situation from this point of view, a lot of enemy combatants that we shot were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were tired, mad, angry, and we just wanted to go home and stop this killing of our brothers.

One of our intelligence officers told us that they received a call from one of the sources in the city telling them that there were flags posted all over the town that said that there [were] known snipers in the city [killing] insurgents and the civilians.

We did not take into consideration that the innocent people were being killed by us, because every time we sent the pictures to the command post through the interlink system, we would receive an approval to kill people with shovel and the bags. Now, I know that it wasn’t right to do that, but when you trust those who act like they care for you, you listen to them and follow their orders because you don’t want to let your friends down. "What if" was used as propaganda and a way to relieve our minds from the actions we have partaken in and to make it easier on us.

Adam Kokesh:

During the Siege of Fallujah, our rules of engagement changed so often that we were often uncertain of them, and at one point, anyone who was described as a suspicious observer would be a legitimate target, anyone holding a cell phone, binoculars, or at one point, anyone out after curfew, and this led to an incident where Marines were firing at firefighters and cops silhouetted against a fire that our indirect fire had caused who were trying to help out the civilians that were being affected by that fire.


Patriot missiles: Iraq Veterans Against the War
By Ariel Leve
March 2, 2008

Jason Washburn, 28, grew up in San Diego, California. He always wanted to do something to make a difference, and he enlisted in the US marines in December 2001. He wasn’t itching to go into combat, but he wanted the training.
He fought in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 where, he says, he met little resistance. Most people were surrendering.

“There were massive amounts of artillery strikes before we even invaded. We saw the results of that. Streets full of bodies – women and children – body parts, extremely indiscriminate. I’m talking about rolling through villages here, not military encampments.”

He was told there was a military structure in one village. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any army uniforms. Or weapons. All I saw were civilians.” . . .

By the time Washburn served in Haditha he was on his third combat tour. He was there on November 19, 2005, the day of the massacre when 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed, including women and children.

“My squad was doing medivacs out of the town. I was not there to witness the shooting, but I know many marines who were.”

It was a squad in his unit that went on the rampage after their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). . . .

Washburn says Haditha was not an isolated incident. “It’s the one that just happened to be uncovered.”

Perry O’ Brien, who served as a medic in Afghanistan in 2003, is one of the Winter Soldiers on the verification team, which will ensure the testimonies are watertight, lest falsehood undermine the message. The order that O’Brien’s team is hearing most from the testifiers is the “shovel order”.

“Anyone carrying a shovel or any sort of implement that could be used to bury an IED could be considered a target,” he says. “After dark, you can shoot anyone who is outside. Or anyone who puts anything on the side of the road can be considered a target. You won’t find it in writing, but it’s an order indicated to soldiers.”

If not in writing, how can it be proven? “If we have enough soldiers testifying, it will be.”
Washburn says the most dangerous job in Iraq “has to be a taxi driver”. He tells two stories of taxi drivers being shot, both innocent victims. One driver was deaf and didn’t hear the command to halt. The other was at a checkpoint in the Haditha area.

“It was the mayor of one of the towns who was driving, and he was shot and killed. They found out after they shot him. My squad had to apologise to the family. We paid reparations. I don’t know the exact amount. But let’s see: money or a dead husband and father and mayor? People weren’t happy about that.”

During Washburn’s first Iraq deployment in 2003, his unit was told to capture a “rabble rouser”. “We kick down the door and all we find are a few women holding babies and a couple of kids. We were ordered to take the babies away and put sandbags on the women’s heads, tie their hands behind their backs, put them on their knees facing the wall. Here I am zip-tying these women, and my buddy is standing next to me holding these babies asking what do I do with these kids? We stood there, like, oh shit, what do we do? The squad leader came in and shouted, ‘Everybody is bagged and tagged – everybody!’ So we did it.” The babies were put down on the floor. After a few hours everyone was untied.

In January 2003, O’Brien was deployed to Afghanistan for eight months. While he was there, he had many experiences that made him uncomfortable. Several times he witnessed an Afghan civilian die on the operating table after treatment from a mobile military surgical unit. Rather than prepare the corpse for the family, O’Brien witnessed the surgeons and the medics use the body to practise on.

“One doctor said, ‘Come up and feel his heart!’ This is what a heart feels like.’"

Half the platoon, if not more, participated. Daniel Paulsen, 27, was there and corroborates this story. There are photographs as well. Someone had grabbed O’Brien’s digital camera and taken photographs of the heart and the medics walking around and poking it. These photographs were taken for fun.

Eventually the chest of the corpse was closed up. “It was a total violation of our medical oath to use a corpse for medical training,” says O’Brien. “What’s particularly terrible is that these were all doctors that had practices back home – they were familiar with the law and the Hippocratic oath. There was such a huge disconnect between the way they treated Afghans and the way they treated American patients.

“When Americans died, the corpses became these sacred objects that were treated with tremendous care. There was this solemn funerary attitude around them. When an Afghan died, it was [as if they were] treating them like they weren’t human.

On a February morning at a cafe in Brooklyn, New York, Perry O’Brien is explaining the difference between the “book way” and the “real way”, and the significance of the “three-stomp signal” that is used to differentiate between the two.

“If someone is giving a briefing and they stomp their foot three times after what they are saying, it means ‘disregard what I just said’. For instance, ‘Make every effort to avoid civilian property damage,’ stomp stomp stomp – [means] ignore that. The idea is that when you get back [from combat], anything that you did the book way can be spoken about – but not what was done the real way.”

It isn’t just between the book way and the real way, he says; it’s become between the honourable way and the immoral way. . . .

“The book way was we treat everyone the same…” Perry smiles and taps his foot three times. “You are ordered to do things that are clear violations of our conscience and what we know to be moral. It’s not even what’s prescribed by the Geneva conventions. It’s what every human being knows to be right and wrong. We’re asked to do things that violate that and told it’s about the war, but you can never tell anyone because we need to protect them from that.

World Tribunal in Istanbul
Iraqi Victims Expose U.S. War Crimes
by Larry Everest
Revolution #012
August 21, 2005

The June 24-26 World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) in Istanbul, Turkey, was the concluding session of a two-year effort which included previous sessions in London, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Brussels, New York, Japan, Stockholm, South Korea, Rome, Frankfurt, Geneva, Lisbon and Spain. Drawing on the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s 1967 International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, the WTI’s mission was to document the truth about the 2003 war and occupation–against official lies, disinformation and silence. . . .

Story of Hudda Fawzi Salam Issawa from Falluja:

Five of us, including a 55-year-old neighbor, were trapped together in our house in Falluja when the siege began. On November 9 [2004], American Marines came to our house. My father and the neighbor went to the door to meet them. We were not fighters. We thought we had nothing to fear. I ran into the kitchen to put on my veil, since men were going to enter our house. This saved my life. As my father and neighbor approached the door, the Americans opened fired on them. They died instantly. Me and my 13-year-old brother hid in the kitchen behind the fridge. The soldiers came into the house and caught my older sister. They beat her. Then they shot her.

Statement of a 46-year-old engineer describing what he saw in a U.S. prison:

I saw a young man of 14 years of age bleeding from his anus and lying on the floor. He was Kurdish and his name was Hama. I heard the soldiers talking to each other about this guy; they mentioned that the reason for this bleeding was inserting a metal object in his anus.

U.S. Journalist Dahr Jamail, describing his interview with an Iraqi man released from Abu Ghraib after being held for over three months without charges:

Ali Abbas lives in the Al-Amiriyah district of Baghdad and worked in civil administration. He was forced to strip naked shortly after arriving [at Abu Ghraib], and remained that way for most of his stay in the prison. "They made us lay on top of each other naked as if it was sex, and beat us with a broom," he said. In addition to being beaten on their genitals, detainees were also denied water and food for extended periods of time, then were forced to watch as their food was thrown in the trash. Treatment also included having a loaded gun held to his head to prevent him from crying out in pain as his hand-ties were tightened.

"My hands were enlarged because there was no blood because they cuffed them so tight," he told me. "My head was covered with the sack, and they fastened my right hand to a pole with handcuffs. They made me stand on my toes to clip me to it.".

Abbas said that at one point, "Two men came, one a foreigner and one a translator. He asked me who I was. I said I’m a human being. They told me, ‘We are going to cut off your head and send you to hell. We will take you to Guantánamo.’. Abbas added, "They shit on us, used dogs against us, used electricity and starved us."

He told me, "Saddam Hussein used to have people like those who tortured us. Why do they put Saddam to trial, but they do not put the Americans to trial?". Abbas did not feel this was the work of a few individual soldiers. "This was organized, it wasn’t just individuals. And every one of the troops in Abu Ghraib was responsible for it."

Statement of an agricultural engineer about his detention by the U.S. military:

They inserted some strange objects into my anus and asked me to take very humiliating positions while they messed with me. They were calling these positions some names, which I did not understand. They took many photos while I was in these positions, they were laughing and enjoying it. There was a male and female soldier who sat behind me; they were messing with each other. Their game was that the male soldier would aim at my injured and swollen leg with a piece of rock. As soon as he hit his target and I screamed of pain, she would reward him by letting him kiss her or fondle her. The stronger my pain was and the louder my scream was, the more he would get from her.

Journalist Fadhil Al Bedrani, who witnessed the U.S. assault on Falluja in November 1994:

On Nov. 15, in Goulan area, 20 to 25 persons were running barefoot when an American warplane bombed, killing and wounding them. Only one elderly woman and two children stayed safe when they hid under rubbles of a bombed house. The dead bodies were left in the street for 20 days.

On Nov. 25, 15 American soldiers entered a house at Bathara area, central Falluja. Three civilian men were there; one was handicapped, the second was 61 years old, and the third was 52 years old. The only one who stayed alive said, "When the Americans entered the house they saw that we were sitting unarmed; 14 left, and the last one threw us a grenade, saying bye. Two were seriously wounded. I with my slight wounds tried to help them, but after a while they were back; I pretended to be dead while other two were suffering. They put a bullet in every head and left."

Testimony by Amal Sawadi about what happens when U.S. troops invade people’s homes:

Sometimes Americans arrest all the family and other times they leave the women and children outside and only arrest the men. Sacks are placed on the heads of the people who are to be taken away while their hands remain tied. Then they put everybody in a vehicle, piling people up without any respect.

Then the investigation starts. Actually, what they are investigating is ambiguous. There are no lawyers allowed for the detainees, and no information is given about the reasons or the evidence surrounding the detentions. In the process, Iraqi women are being raped. One woman was bleeding for three months and the raping continued. There is no health service. The media does not mention these facts–or the fact that all of Iraq has become a prison.

The [Tribunal] Jury delivered a sweeping and unconditional indictment of the U.S.-UK war and occupation, calling it "illegal" and "one of the most unjust, immoral, and cowardly wars in history." Among its indictments of the U.S. and British governments:

Planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of aggression in contravention of the UN Charter and the Nuremburg Principles.

Targeting the civilian population of Iraq and civilian infrastructure.

Actively creating conditions under which the status of Iraqi women has seriously been degraded.

Imposing punishments without charge or trial, including collective punishment.

The Jury also stated: "Much evidence supports the conclusion that a major motive for the war was to control and dominate the Middle East and its vast reserves of oil as a part of the U.S. drive for global hegemony."

It also called for all complicit parties–including the "coalition of the willing," other governments, the UN Security Council, corporations involved in the war, and the major media–to be held accountable.

There are other tribunals on the U.S. wars of aggression, the newest of which is taking place now in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

A tribunal of conscience
REFLECTING ON THE LAW
By SHAD SALEEM FARUQI
November 4, 2009

ON Saturday Oct 31, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) heard the opening arguments from the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) about war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Commission submitted on many grave issues of international law of war and of humanitarian law, arising out of the invasion of Afgha¬nistan in 2001 and the conquest of Iraq in 2003 by the United States and its allies.

There are well documented allegations that the invading armies used banned weapons of mass destruction, bombed civilian areas and committed mass murders. There were kidnappings, torture, racial and religious profiling and many other acts of savagery and lawlessness that satisfy the legal definitions of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, in a show of invincibility and impunity, then US President George W. Bush, by a White House Memorandum of Feb 7, 2002 exempted his nation from the binding provisions of the much-venerated Geneva Conventions, excluding (suspected) al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees from the Conventions’ protection. . . .

The US president has no authority to abrogate the law of his country. Therefore, Bush’s memorandum exempting the United States from the binding rules of the Geneva Convention had no force in law.

The Tribunal held that in relation to crimes against humanitarian law, the status of a head of state does not constitute a defence. Nor is it a defence to submit that one was acting under the orders of a superior; this is the law since the Nuremberg Trials.

The lifting of immunity and the principle of individual criminal respon¬sibility are now embodied in a plethora of international laws and decisions. These include the UN General Assembly Resolution 95(1) of Dec 11, 1946; Article 13 of the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind (1991); UN Document No. S/25704 (1993); and Article 27 of the Rome Statute. The Tribunal has just begun its work. The road ahead is long and painful.

A well-known (outside the U.S., here coverage was unofficially censored) tribunal was also held in Tokyo several years ago, called INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR AFGHANISTAN AT TOKYO. It listed numerous charges against the U.S., most of which it found a great deal of evidence for.

. 2. The International Tribunal shall have the power to prosecute persons committing or ordering to be committed other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:

. . . grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:

(a) wilful killing;

(b) torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;

(c) wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health;

(d) extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;

(e) compelling a prisoner of war or a civilian to serve in the forces of a hostile power;

(f) wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or a civilian of the rights of fair and regular trial;

(g) unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a civilian;

(h) taking civilians as hostages.

. . . other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:

(a) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities ;

(b) Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives ;

(c) Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;

(d) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;

(e) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are
undefended and which are not military objectives;

(f) Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of
defence, has surrendered at discretion;

(g) Making improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions, resulting in death or serious personal injury;

(h) The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;

(i) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;

(j) Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons;

(k) Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;

(l) Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively
demanded by the necessities of war;

(m) Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;

(n) Employing poison or poisoned weapons;

(o) Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices;

(p) Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition;

(q) Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(r) Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

P.S. — Considering what our military has done and continues to do to Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s civilians, I don’t want to join in the grossly narcissistic ‘our poor troops’ outpouring of recent days; however, two comments from WINTER SOLDIER ON THE HILL are relevant to that, so I will add them here:

Sergio Kochergin:

When we all come back from Iraq and we seek help from our command, they call us weak and cowards. The lines for psychologists are almost a year long, and the only thing that can help us is the alcohol and the prescription pills that are given out to us like candy to keep us down, because it seems like doctors don’t want to do their job and they just don’t care.

Adam Kokesh:

If I may just comment on your earlier remarks about veterans issues, when the military is struggling so desperately as it is right now to meet manpower requirements and threatening members with stop loss of over 120,000 and an untold more with involuntary extension, it is in the interest of those who wish this occupation to continue to make life difficult for veterans because they don’t want people to think that when they get out of the military, they will be taken care of, and they want to do everything in their power to increase the dependency that service members have on the military.