A few days ago I finished Jesus for President and I've already lent it out to the first person on the growing waiting list. What a magnificent book! If you went to seminary and constantly had your nose stuck in a Hauerwas or Yoder book but wished you could lend a more accessible version to someone... this is that book. It isn't dumbed down, let me be clear about that, it's just that this book was really written for the church. This isn't the kind of conversation that takes place in the ethereal upper layers of academia, this is the best Kingdom-of-God theology taken to the streets. And what would we expect? Shane & Co aren't professors, they're subversive prophets living in the abandoned places of the empire. Making their own clothes, living with the poor, dumpster diving for food... always pointing to Jesus. They are living at the margins pointing us to Jesus. They are shouting with their lives (and this book) that the America we live in is a pitiful and fallen Kingdom not worth our allegiance.

The Eagle is fake, the Eagle is dead.

Follow the Lamb!

Labels: Books, Discipleship, Emerging Church, Military, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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Iraq for Sale is a documentary about the corporations that have been given contracts to do work formerly done by the military, and how a corporation's first priority to make as much profit as possible is in direct conflict with what is good for the American military and the American taxpayer.

I first heard about this phenomenon (specifically Blackwater's role in Iraq) on NPR sometime last year, so I was very interested when I found this documentary. Blackwater is a corporation that offers specialized military forces. They are not part of the US military, they are a private firm that can be hired to perform military-like duties. The US military out-sources a lot of work to firms like Blackwater, CACI and KBR (a division of Halliburton). These firms do a number of jobs such as providing security to top level officials, washing soldiers laundry and even interrogating prisoners at places like Abu Ghraib.

Some of these corporations are getting attention because information has come out showing that they've been ripping off the government, for example KBR was charging $95 to do a load of laundry for soldiers in Iraq. Stuff like that. These corporations are getting contracts to do things the military used to do itself and then they, like all corporations, proceed to maximize profit. You can imagine that a lot of patriotic folks are unjustifiably upset about how these corporations are putting profit over serving the military and about the cost to the American taxpayer for the incredible waste. My own anger over the issue has less to do with how this affects my taxes. What upsets me is the incredible profit war provides some corporations. This is only exponentially so in an administration so committed to the "free market" that they out-source intelligence gathering and interrogation to a private corporation. Of course this shields most of what happens in such operations from any kind of criminal prosecution. If a soldier harms an Iraqi civilian they can be court martialed. If a Blackwater employee kills an Iraqi civilian they cannot be brought to trial.

This marriage between military-corporations and the US government is a particularly horrible one. When war breaks out these corporations stand to make HUGE profits, and when the government uses these corporations there is an added "safety layer" from investigation and prosecution. These corporations are staffed by surprise... former government and military officials. This marriage only serves to make war an incredibly lucrative business to be in and consequently much more frequent.

Have mercy on us Jesus. Your ways are love and peace, but our ways are greed and violence. You are THE truth, but we are a people of deception and lies.

Labels: Film, Military, Politics

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A while back I was riding in the car listening to NPR when they re-aired a peabody award winning broadcast of "This American Life" a favorite show of mine produced by Chicago Public Radio. The broadcast was titled Habeas Schmabeas. Here is a description of the topic "Habeas Schmabeas" tackles...

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even by the Geneva Conventions—because they're the most fearsome enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes?

What followed was one of those gripping stories that makes you sit in your car outside your apartment for 45 minutes because you don't want to miss anything by running inside. You can download the entire episode for free here. What I learned offended the American side of me, to hear about how the constitution is simply ignored or put on hold when it is deemed inconvenient to those in power. Don't we write these rules specifically for hard times when we'd be tempted to abuse power?

From a Christian standpoint what distressed me even more was the de-humanizing abuse many of these prisoners are forced to undergo. Far from buying into the excuses that "this is a different kind of war calling for different kinds of tactics," I am compelled to reflect on Jesus' parable of the indebted prisoner who is freed only to turn around and put those who owed him money into prison. What does forgiveness look like in the midst of a world racked by terrorism? Would Jesus put a "temporary hold" on forgiveness in the face of terrorism declaring that new more modern tactics were needed to fight "extremism?" Or is forgiveness a form of religious extremism in itself? I certainly think so. If prisoners do indeed need to be held captive can it be done while still honoring their God-given dignity? Can their captors be committed to truthfulness and honesty instead of secrecy and deception?

We are often told that the world changed on Sept. 11th, that we now must operate in a "post-9/11" mentality. Does that apply to being a disciple of Jesus Christ? Did being a Christian change on 9/11? Do we get to temporarily set aside things like forgiveness and loving our enemies in the midst of a world filled with terrorism?

OR are forgiveness and love the very ways Jesus taught us to fight such evils?

Labels: Military, Politics, Theology

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Having heard some high praise for the recent Frank Miller adaptation, 300, I trekked off to the theatre a few weekends ago to catch it myself. What followed was an interesting mix of emotions for me. I am usually easily able to suspend disbelief and enter into the world of a film, and it is indeed almost always my goal to do so when watching a film. But some films make that really really hard to do. Or maybe to put it more accurately; sometimes John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas make that really hard to do.

300 lacks nothing in stylistic cinematography or art direction. Every single frame lives in a creative land somewhere between Miller's original comic book and modern day Photoshop art. The texture and style of the film exude a larger-than-life mythical quality that enhance the tale of 300 Spartans fighting off Xerxes' vast armies. It is a story that can only be told in paintings and campfire tales, and in that regard 300 does exceedingly well.

Some have called 300 one-part Art Film one-part Action-Adventure war movie. I would agree, and the first part is done masterfully. But it's that nagging issue of content that kept irking me about the second part of 300. While I was continually drawn into this Spartan world by the artistic beauty I was constantly ejected from it as I heard Yoder, Hauerwas and especially Jesus ringing in my ears.

The overtones of what Walter Wink calls "redemptive violence" are nowhere more pronounced than in 300. The Spartan culture while shown as a somewhat barbaric solider society is nonetheless glorified in perhaps every barbaric trait other than their systematic killing of "less than ideal" babies. While this is shown in a horrific light, the rest of their violent ways are glorified as essential parts of a "rational" and "democratic" society. The overtones connecting American culture and military (especially American Marines) to the Spartan warriors are obvious. King Leonidas' wife, Gorgo lectures the politicians about the necessity for violence using today's popular phrase "freedom isn't free." All these themes kept me from truly entering the movie. Instead I held it at arms length, thinking to myself, this is exactly what Jesus subverts in the Roman empire. This society built on violence, the culture that disciples its people in warfare no matter the personal cost to children and wives. The Roman empire Jesus lived under and was crucified by was heavily influenced by the Spartan legends and ethos. This is the same warrior-culture that the Gospel has a harsh judgment for, and while we have tended to privatize our war-making, we Americans buy into many of the same illusions that the Spartans did.

I kept trying to see where Christians would fit into this whole story (had they been around back then). I think that the Jesus people wouldn't be caught dead on the side of Xerxes, the Persian emperor who called himself a God. The followers of Jesus wouldn't march with the Persian army in it's goal to conquer the world. But neither would the Jesus people devote their lives to being discipled as killing machines in the city of Sparta. The Spartan story of redemptive violence would be in direct conflict with the followers of Jesus who practiced redemptive suffering.

Labels: Film, Military, Non-Violence, Theology

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From Catholic Anarchy

Labels: Funny, Military

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Last weekend I convinced some friends to join me watching Clint Eastwood's latest film, Letters from Iwo Jima. Letters is a companion film to Eastwood's earlier film from this year, Flags of Our Fathers, which I've yet to see. Each film takes a look at the same battle over the Japanese island of Iwo Jima from a different side, Flags from the American perspective and Letters from the Japanese.

Letters may indeed be a compelling war movie, a Japanese tear-jerker in the genre of Saving Private Ryan but I think most would agree that this film has a much more profound message. What Letters does such an excellent job of doing is showing just how much we Americans have in common with the Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima. Their fears and dreams are the same as ours, their pride is as honorable and as blinding as our own. Letters gives almost no real face time to any Americans in the film with the exception of one kid from Oklahoma who is captured by the Japanese. We completely empathize with the Japanese. We root for them, even against our "own" army. In Letters the Americans are a scary invading force and its the Japanese who's story we've entered into. A few characters in the film are also able to enter into the stories of their enemies and it gives them profound compassion in the midst of blind hatred and violence. The three Japanese soldiers and one American soldier who step out of their own national story which narrates the enemy as nothing more than a savage, subhuman creature to be destroyed are able to see that their enemies are indeed their brothers. It is this connection that paints the entire film and its violence as foolish, ignorant and unnecessary.

Having seen all the other best picture noms (with the exception of The Queen) I don't see any way this film doesn't grab picture of the year... unless Scorsese gets the nod as a recognition of his life's work. But put Departed up against Letters and I think Letters is hands down a better film.

Labels: Film, Military, Non-Violence

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Last night I went to a movie alone, as has become my habit of late, and one that I don't really mind. Going alone often allows for much more reflection and immersion in a film. Needless to say though, I will be glad to go to movies with Kara again! The movie I went to see was The Last King of Scotland in which Forrest Whitaker plays the terrifying and somewhat charming Idi Amin, the brutal president of Uganda during most of the 1970's. While Amin is the gravity of the film, all plots and figures being drawn into his world, we observe him mainly through the life of a young Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan. The young Scotsman is as charming as Amin himself and they quickly become friends.

When Garrigan is drawn into Amin's world however, he looses sight of the real Uganda. It isn't until its almost too late that Garrigan realizes what and who Amin really is. What ensues is a terrifying and claustrophobic tale of Garrigan trying to stay alive by appeasing Amin and simultaneously trying to get the heck out of Uganda. Scary. And more scary than your average horror movie because of the reality of it all. This horror tale doesn't have radio-active desert zombies bent on killing, it's about the insane insecurity of a man with a lot of power.

Labels: Film, Military

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I recently saw the 2nd 5 hour episode of the new season of 24 which plays 9 times a day back to back to back on the new 24 network formerly known as FOX or some such thing. Part of me expected to actually like the show despite all my nay-saying over the years about how nothing in 24 would appeal to me. Part of me thought that, as it was the case with LOST, I would become an addict.

BUT NO! 24 was everything I thought it would be: a "we're constantly being threatened by terrorists and need to be 'saved' by people like Jack Bauer, poorly acted, cliché laden, obsessed with America, 'we'll get them' voyeurism" show. Sure its tense but that alone does not explain the amount of hysteria over this show.

Example from this past week's episode 2 of 193 straight hours of heart-pounding 24 action...

Jack Bauer

I'm not afraid of dying.
In China I wasn't afraid of dying, I was afraid of dying for nothing.
Now I know I'm dying for something.

That "something" was intelligence about where a terrorist was hiding out. I laughed out loud when I heard those lines.

So, my question to all of you 24 fans is this... WHY do you love this show so much? It is usually better than this? WHAT is the reason you are so in love with it?

Labels: Military, Theology

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It wasn't until college that I met the forgotten Martin Luther King Jr. Like everyone else I had met the civil rights leader in grade school, learning about him in history texts and on MLK Jr. day. This man was so monumentally popular in US history, held up as a saint who helped make racial equality part of what it means to be an American. But I didn't meet the other MLK until years later and I've come to find out that most people never meet this other MLK. It was in his last years here on earth that Martin Luther King Jr. turned his attention towards the growing poverty in the United States and towards the systems that help cause and maintain such poverty. He turned his attention towards the growing militarism of the United States and towards the wars being fought. Indeed MLK had the courage to say that the United States was "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." It was this MLK that our country has forgotten. This MLK was assassinated. The words of this MLK still have a prophetic word for us today.

Thanks to Mark Bilby for this article about the forgotten MLK.

Labels: Life, Military, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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My roomate Jake made me aware of this article published on the website of his alma matter, Olivet Nazarene University. The title of the article is "Faith in the Military," which is meant to mean "A Christian's faith in the midst of the military," but I found it to be an ironic double-entendre about having faith in the military itself.

Steve Foster ’89 often works 18-hour days. He sleeps in common barracks, hundreds of miles away from his wife and two young children. Soon, he will ship out to Iraq as a chaplain, a dramatic change from the life he left behind, living in the suburbs of St. Louis and pastoring a middle-class church. Like other Olivet alumni serving in the military, Foster sees his current position as one of ministry.

“My service to country is a direct result of service to Christ,” he says in the quiet, strong tone of an enlisted man. “The Heavenly Father has broken my heart repeatedly for soldiers and their families. That brokenness is why I serve both God and country.”

Navigating Foster's comments is an exercise requiring nuance. It is entirely possible to minister to those in the military and be called by God to do so. The military is indeed a place of many broken hearts and families and Jesus Christ must be in the midst of that suffering. We would do well to meet Him and those hurting soliders there. That being said, I am left wondering what Foster means by "service to country." If by this he means that he is Christ's ambassador humbling serving those who are in the military by bringing them the gospel, then that is the kind of service "our country" needs. If however he means (and I'm afraid this is the case) that by being a chaplain he is somehow serving the goals of "our country" then I must protest!

Serving the goals of the military is nothing short of pursing an anti-gospel, of giving aid to the enemy of the Kingdom of God. The military does not have a chaplain program so that soliders may grow in discipleship. It exists instead so they might learn to kill more efficently without the crushing weight of the guilt which comes from taking the life of one of God's beloved children. Chaplains are meant by the military to be "supernatural morale boosters," whose job it is to soothe the fractured psyche of children of God who have been (re)created as agents of destruction ready to obey the State.

The article continues...

Dr. Stan Tuttle, an Olivet professor of education, had a similar motivation when he gave up 11 weeks of his summer to train soldiers in Kuwait. Unlike Foster, Tuttle’s “official” job wasn’t to minister. But living side by side with the soldiers, his faith often came into play.

What stood out to Tuttle was the selflessness of the men and women who faced imminent danger on a daily basis. “Instead of asking for prayers for themselves or their units, they’d ask for prayers for family members and neighbors. It was the attitude of service — the attitude of other — that was very present in these men and women who were soon to be in harm’s way.”

I find it interesting that there is no mention of these soliders being encouraged to pray for the people they are preparing to kill (although this does happen more often that we might think, it seems rarely to be at the encouragement of chaplains, but rather springs naturally from soliders who recognize the humanity of their enemies). I am not saying Christians cannot serve God in the midst of the military but it seems to me that the options are very very few.

A medic embodies the life and spirit of Christ in that regardless of what "side" someone is on the battlefield medic exisits within the battle simply to rescue, to heal to bring life where there is only death. This job strikes me as one of the most Christlike professions one could pursue.

The chaplain is also a role the Christian can take in the military, bringing counsel and gospel into the midst of violence and destruction and the systematic conversion of children of God into objects trained to kill. The chaplain can bring the gospel, and by this I mean the FULL gospel, not simply a private one that never conflitcs with the solider's job.

Unfortuneately I think that the Christian serving during wartime as a Chaplain will find they are quickly dismissed if they preach a full gospel. The chaplain who edits the gospel so that children of God may find a smooth fit between discipleship and killing other children of God will probably be very "sucessful" and left alone by the military as they are fulfilling their duty to the State.
[UPDATE: Through our discussion the above paragraph has come into light as pretty much false. Chaplains are aparently very hard to get rid of and preaching peace and nonviolence would not be enough to get you fired.]

The rest of the article continues much as the first, being a Christian in the military mostly means that God helps you get through Ranger training as well as remembering to do the "right thing," but from the tone of the article it seems that refusing to kill other children of God is not one of those decisions we Christians have to worry about, because we have faith in the military.

Labels: Military, Non-Violence, Politics

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The Film Why We Fight, which I previously posted about is now available to watch IN FULL online at google videos for FREE. Check it out HERE.

Labels: Film, Military

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When I went with Kaz, Kara and Jeff to see Capote a few weeks ago at our local art-house theater here in Kansas City I saw a preview for a new documentary about the American war machine titled Why We Fight. I've been waiting somewhat impatiently to see it ever since. Lukily Kansas City is somewhat of a hub in the MidWest for art and dissenters alike so even though it took a while Why We Fight is actually playing in two theaters in the area, one in Olathe, KS of all places! Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki uses President Eisenhower's farewell address to the American people as the frame for the film. Eisenhower, a WWII general turned US President used his last public address as the President of the United States to warn the American people about the gravest danger that we as a nation faced... the expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex.

Even though Eisenhower was a proud WWII general he spent his time as President of the United States trying to reign in the growing power and military might that the United States was building up. Eisenhower had a keen sense that every dollar spent on "defense" and destruction meant that money would be taken away from education, health care and help for the homeless. In one speech Eisenhower actually details how many schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, etc. could be bought with the money spent on a bomber plane. Eisenhower appaerntly saw the growing militarism of the United States as the greatest threat to our way of life. He feared that the "defense" industry would become so ingrained in our economy that America would become addicted to the economy of warmaking. He tried in his eight years in office to keep a tight reign on this and reduce "defense" spending, but even the President of the United States he found out, could not hold back growing militarism. He was espeically worried about what would happen when a President was in power that didn't understand the military and war as intimately as he did... prophetic.

Why We Fight tells the story of the continaual militarization of the United States, while taking a closer look at several personal stories. Throughout the film we follow two Air Force F-117 pilots and their mission that began the Iraq War in March of 2003. We are also introduced to a retired NY Cop whose son died in the attacks on the Trade Center in 2001. We see his bloodlust and depression, and eventually his betrayal by the President he put his trust in. We also follow the story of William Soloman a 23 year old kid down on his luck and with no direction after his mother's death as he enlists in the Army to "instantly solve all his problems."

While I thought that Farenheight 9/11 was a timely film and brought up a lot of issues that needed to be discussed. I also can see that Moore probably just galvanized each side with his anti-Bush thesis and decidedly partisan treatment of 9/11. Why We Fight goes beyond an anti-Republican agenda and asks the very basic question, why do we fight? What are we fighting for? It debunks the fluffy answer given by the Administration and echoed by their supporters that we fight for "freedom." As if dropping bombs in Iraq somehow gives women in Mississippi the right to vote. The film takes a much closer look at the money congress continually spends on "defense," especially how the large war corporations like Lockheed, Boeing, etc. make sure that when they win a large bid to build a new weapon or plane for the US Military that the weapon/plane has parts of it built in every state in the Union. With this kind of pressure, even liberal democrats are pro-"defense" spending because it means jobs in their home districts.

The film also tackles what is an often overlooked facet of the Industrial-Military Complex today, the think tanks, especially the neo-conservative think tanks who run Bush's cabinet. This film is chilling and disturbing, but absolutely necessary for any citizen who wants to be informed rather than turn a blind eye to the growing militarism and imperialism of the United States (or the New Rome as the neo-cons unashamedly call it).

Labels: Film, Military

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Again, we have to read about it because without pictures and stories we do not hold ourselves accountable for our actions. On that note, I would like to say how much I appreciate War Photographers who do not let us get away with unconsionable things without seeing with our eyes the effects.

Wailing children, the wounded, the dead: victims of the day cluster bombs rained on Babylon
by Robert Fisk
03 April 2003


The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something illegal – something quite outside the Geneva Conventions – occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.

The wailing children, the young women with breast and leg wounds, the 10 patients upon whom doctors had to perform brain surgery to remove metal from their heads, talk of the days and nights when the explosives fell "like grapes" from the sky. Cluster bombs, the doctors say – and the detritus of the air raids around the hamlets of Nadr and Djifil and Akramin and Mahawil and Mohandesin and Hail Askeri shows that they are right.

Were they American or British aircraft that showered these villages with one of the most lethal weapons of modern warfare? The 61 dead who have passed through the Hillah hospital since Saturday night cannot tell us. Nor can the survivors who, in many cases, were sitting in their homes when the white canisters opened high above their village, spilling thousands of bomblets into the sky, exploding in the air, soaring through windows and doorways to burst indoors or bouncing off the roofs of the concrete huts to blow up later in the roadways.

Rahed Hakem remembers that it was 10.30am on Sunday when she was sitting in her home in Nadr, that she heard "the voice of explosions" and looked out of the door to see "the sky raining fire". She said the bomblets were a black-grey colour. Mohamed Moussa described the clusters of "little boxes" that fell out of the sky in the same village and thought they were silver-coloured. They fell like "small grapefruit," he said. "If it hadn't exploded and you touched it, it went off immediately," he said. "They exploded in the air and on the ground and we still have some in our home, unexploded."

Karima Mizler thought the bomblets had some kind of wires attached to them – perhaps the metal "butterfly" that contains sets of the tiny cluster bombs and springs open to release them in showers.

Some victims died at once, mostly women and children, some of whose blackened, decomposing remains lay in the tiny charnel house mortuary at the back of the Hillah hospital. The teaching college received more than 200 wounded since Saturday night – the 61 dead are only those who were brought to the hospital or who died during or after surgery, and many others are believed to have been buried in their home villages – and, of these, doctors say about 80 per cent were civilians.

Soldiers there certainly were, at least 40 if these statistics are to be believed, and amid the foul clothing of the dead outside the mortuary door I found a khaki military belt and a combat jacket. But village men can also be soldiers and both they and their wives and daughters insisted there were no military installations around their homes. True or false? Who is to know if a tank or a missile launcher was positioned in a nearby field – as they were along the highway north to Baghdad? But the Geneva Conventions demand protection for civilians even if they are intermingled with military personnel, and the use of cluster bombs in these villages – even if aimed at military targets – thus crosses the boundaries of international law.

So it was that 27-year old Asil Yamin came to receive those awful round wounds in her back. And so five-year-old Zaman Abbais was hit in the legs and 48-year-old Samira Abdul-Hamza in the eyes, chest and legs. Her son Haidar, a 32-year-old soldier, said the containers which fell to the ground were white with some red and green sometimes painted on them. ''It is like a grenade and they came into the houses," he said. "Some stayed on the land, others exploded."

Heartbreaking is the only word to describe 10-year-old Maryam Nasr and her five-year-old sister Hoda. Maryam has a patch over her right eye where a piece of bomblet embedded itself. She also had wounds to the stomach and thighs. I didn't realise that Hoda, standing by her sister's bed, was wounded until her mother carefully lifted the little girl's scarf and long hair to show a deep puncture in the right side of her head, just above her ear, congealed blood sticking to her hair but the wound still gently bleeding. Their mother described how she had been inside her home and heard an explosion and found her daughters lying in their own blood near the door. The little girls alternately smiled and hid when I took their pictures. In other wards, the hideously wounded would try to laugh, to show their bravery. It was a humbling experience.

The Iraqi authorities, of course, were all too ready to allow us journalists access to these patients. But there was no way these children and often uneducated parents could manufacture their stories of tragedy and pain. Nor could the Iraqis have faked the scene in Nadr village where the remains of the tiny bomblets littered the ground beside the scorch marks. A crew from Sky Television even managed to bring a set of bomblet shrapnel back to Baghdad from Nadr with them, the wicked little metal balls that are intended to puncture the human body still locked into their frame like cough sweets in a metal sheath, They were of a black colour which glinted silver when held against the light.

Again, were the aircraft that dropped these terrible weapons American or British? The deputy administrator of the hospital and one of his doctors told a confused tale of military action around the city in recent days, of Apache helicopters that would disgorge special forces on the road to Karbala; one of their operations – if the hospital personnel are to be believed – went spectacularly wrong one night recently when militiamen forced them to retreat. Shortly afterwards, the cluster bomb raids began, although the villages that were targeted appear to have been on the other side of Hillah to the reported abortive American attack.

One thing was clear: there is no "front line" in the fighting around Babylon, that US forces strike into land around the Tigris river by air and then withdraw and Iraqi forces do much the same in the other direction. Only the Americans and British, of course, have air superiority – indeed there is no evidence a single Iraqi aircraft has taken off since the start of the invasion – so even the US and British officers back at Qatar headquarters can hardly claim the cluster bombs were dropped by Iraq.

The most recent raid occurred on Tuesday when 11 civilians were killed – two of them women and three of them children – in a village called Hindiyeh. A man sent to collect the corpses reported to the hospital the only living thing he found in the area was a hen. Iraqi bomb disposal officers were ordered into the villages yesterday afternoon to clear the unexploded ordnance.

Needless to say, it is not the first time cluster bombs have been used against civilians. During Israel's 1982 siege of west Beirut, its air force dropped cluster bomblets manufactured for the US Navy across several areas, especially in the Fakhani and Ouzai districts, causing civilians ferocious and deep wounds identical to those I saw in Hillah yesterday. Angry at the misuse of their weapons, which are designed for use against exclusively military targets, the Reagan administration withheld a shipment of fighter-bombers for Israel – then relented a few weeks later and sent the aircraft anyway.

It is not easy to listen to Iraqi officials condemning the use of illegal weapons when the Iraqi air force has itself dropped poison gas on the Iranian army and on pro-Iranian Kurdish villages during the 1980-88 war against Iran. Outraged claims from Iraqi officials at the abuse of human rights sound like a bell with a very hollow ring. But something terrible happened around Hillah this week, something unforgivable and something contrary to international law. One hesitates, as I say, to talk of human rights in this land of torture but if the Americans and British don't watch out, they are likely to find themselves condemned for what they have always – and rightly – accused Iraq of: war crimes.

Labels: Military

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Here again is another snapshot of the horror of war. War is not honrable or worthy of glory. No war happens without these kinds of "incidents" arising, no matter the intentonality. Pray for Peace, pray for the soliders who were involved who must be going through incredible emotions at this time. Soliders are not the enemy, death is, let us remember that our lord defeated death!

'You've just killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough'
By Raymond Whitaker
02 April 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393062

As a blue Toyota van raced towards an intersection held by American troops, Captain Ronny Johnson grew increasingly concerned. He radioed to one of his forward platoons, giving the order: "Fire a warning shot." The vehicle kept coming, so, with increasing urgency, he told the platoon to shoot a machine-gun round into its radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Capt Johnson yelled into the radio when he saw no action being taken. Then he shouted at the top of his voice "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"

The hail of gunfire that followed resulted in the deaths of up to 10 Iraqi women and children, including five under the age of five.

Sharply conflicting accounts of the tragedy at a military checkpoint near Najaf on Monday evening were still circulating yesterday when American troops shot dead another civilian at a roadblock. He was unarmed.

American commanders admitted that their soldiers had killed seven women and children but their first reaction was to defend their troops, saying they opened fire after warning shots, including one into the vehicle's engine, were ignored. The men involved did "absolutely the right thing", said General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. "Our soldiers on the ground have an absolute right to defend themselves."

But William Branigin, a journalist for The Washington Post who witnessed the incident, filed a graphic account of Capt Johnson's interchange with his platoon. The reporter said 10 people were killed, and that the first shots fired included 25mm high-explosive cannon shells from one or more Bradley fighting vehicles, which tore into the four-wheel-drive.

He claimed that Capt Johnson, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, after peering into his binoculars from the intersection where he was positioned, screamed at his platoon leader: "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

Afterwards, reported Mr Branigin, the soldiers gave the survivors 10 body bags to recover the remains and offered them money in compensation.

An army medic present told Mr Branigin: "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen and I hope I never see it again."

US Central Command said Monday's killings and yesterday's shooting, which happened when a white pick-up truck failed to stop at a checkpoint 20 miles from Nasiriyah, were being investigated. But it was maintaining its unapologetic stance. "There will be occasions where civilians will be put in harm's way," said Brigadier General Vincent Brooks. Another spokesman blamed the Najaf deaths on Saddam Hussein.

"This is yet another incident in a trend of this regime using civilians, in this case innocent women and children, in order to cause harm to coalition forces," said Capt Frank Thorp. "The blood of this incident is on the hands of this regime."

To others, the deaths indicate how jittery and trigger-happy American troops have become since an Iraqi soldier blew himself up at a roadblock on Saturday, killing four Americans. "I thought it was a suicide bomb," said one of the soldiers who opened fire.

Capt Johnson was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that he thought the Toyota driver might have been a suicide bomber. "All the other vehicles stopped and turned around when they saw us," he said. "But this one kept on coming."

These are the first civilian deaths for which the Anglo-American forces have admitted responsibility, but "embedded" journalists have seen evidence of several more, usually when Iraqis have approached troop positions at night.

Predictions that the Iraqi population would welcome British and American troops have proved wide of the mark. A Pentagon spokesman's comment that "everyone is now seen as a combatant until proven otherwise" means gaining civilian support will be harder than ever. Asked if the checkpoint killings undermined attempts to win over locals, a British Army spokesman said: "It does indeed."

Commanders insist that the rules of engagement have not changed, but new procedures have been ordered in response to the suicide bombing. Drivers and passengers at checkpoints will be ordered out of vehicles with their hands raised, and will be searched. Cars and lorries will no longer be permitted to cross through American and British convoys; any vehicle blocking traffic will be pushed aside.

And if civilians approach troops with their hands in their pockets and fail to respond, first to a shouted command and then to a warning shot, they will be killed, US officials say.

American forces have traditionally taken a more aggressive, arms-length approach towards civilian populations than other Western armies. This conflicts with their desire to appear as "liberators" in Iraq. On peace-keeping duties in Kosovo, for example, US troops were ordered to wear full battle gear at all times, unlike every other national contingent.

James Dingley, a lecturer on terrorism at the University of Ulster, contrasted the US approach with that of the British, whose Northern Ireland experience means they are accustomed to closer contact with civilians. "Americans lived in their fortified villages and never mixed with anybody [in the Balkans]," he said. "They had virtually no comprehension of the locals ... and developing empathy with them."

Labels: Military

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Let's not forget that causalities (not collateral damage) happen on both sides. Here is a sotry from the "other side."

Children killed and maimed in bomb attack on town
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad and Justin Huggler
02 April 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393127

At least 11 civilians, nine of them children, were killed in Hilla in central Iraq yesterday, according to reporters in the town who said they appeared to be the victims of bombing.

Reporters from the Reuters news agency said they counted the bodies of 11 civilians and two Iraqi fighters in the Babylon suburb, 50 miles south of Baghdad. Nine of the dead were children, one a baby. Hospital workers said as many as 33 civilians were killed.

Terrifying film of women and children later emerged after Reuters and the Associated Press were permitted by the Iraqi authorities to take their cameras into the town. Their pictures – the first by Western news agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront – showed babies cut in half and children with amputation wounds, apparently caused by American shellfire and cluster bombs.

Much of the videotape was too terrible to show on television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able to send only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that included a father holding out pieces of his baby and screaming "cowards, cowards'' into the camera. Two lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital.

Dr Nazem el-Adali, who was trained in Edinburgh, said almost all the patients were victims of cluster bombs dropped around Hella and in the neighbouring village of Mazarak. One woman, Alia Mukhtaff, is seen lying wounded on a bed; she lost six of her children and her husband in the attacks. Another man is seen with an arm missing, and a second man, Majeed Djelil, whose wife and two of his children were killed, can be seen sitting next to his third and surviving child, whose foot is missing. The mortuary of the hospital, a butcher's shop of chopped up corpses, is seen briefly in the tape.

Iraqi officials have been insisting for 48 hours that the Americans have used cluster bombs on civilians in the region but this is the first time that evidence supporting these claims has come from Western news agencies. Most of the wounded said they were hit by American munitions and one man described how an American vehicle fired a shell into his family home. "I could see an American flag,'' he says.

One of the editors in Baghdad, a European, when asked why he would not send the full videotape to London, wound the pictures on to two mutilated corpses of babies. "How could we ever send this?'' he said.

Further south, there was heavy fire around the town of Diwaniyah, about 80 miles south-east of Baghdad. It was the second day of close combat between American forces and Iraqi troops, after fighting in the town of Hindiyah on Monday. It appeared that US troops were looking to take on some Iraqi forces after initially advancing largely unopposed through vast tracts of empty desert but deliberately avoiding population centres.

According to reports from Diwaniyah, US Marines deliberately provoked a firefight by moving into an area where they had come under fire before. The marines came under heavy fire from rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns.

Iraqi Republican Guard troops and other fighters fired on the advancing marines from fortified bunkers and positions in buildings and behind vehicles. Corporal Patrick Irish of the US Marines said: "They were shooting from buildings, from dug-out positions, from holes, from everything. They would jump out to shoot. They were behind buses. You name it, they were there."

Although the Iraqis were outgunned by the heavily armed marines, the firefight went on for about 10 hours, according to Lieutenant-Colonel B P McCoy of the US Marines. They used 155mm artillery to destroy Iraqi tanks and mortar positions. "We hammered them pretty hard," said Lt-Col McCoy. At least 75 Iraqis were killed in fighting on Diwaniyah's outskirts and at least 44 soldiers, including some Republican Guard officers, were taken prisoner, Lt-Col McCoy said. There was no report of American casualties.

North-east of Diwaniyah there was heavy bombing yesterday near Kut to clear the way for ground forces, according to the US military. American marines also claim to have "secured" an air base at Qalat Sukkar, south-east of Kut, which US forces want to use as a staging ground.

Overnight, planes bombed the area around Hindiyah. Ominously, there were also reports of missiles streaking towards the Shia holy city of Kerbala, where any damage to the shrines could set the Shia Muslim world alight.

The Iraqi military said its troops were fighting US forces inside Nasiriyah and on the outskirts of the city, and had inflicted heavy casualties. "The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely," a military spokesman said at a press briefing, who claimed that fighting was still going on as he spoke. He claimed the forces fighting in and around Nasiriyah included Republican Guards, regular Iraqi army soldiers, volunteers from across the Arab world, and ordinary Iraqi citizens.

US Marines fought their way across the city's bridges last Tuesday but did not take control of the city. Since then, Iraqi forces have made several ambushes in the area.

The Iraqi spokesman also said US forces launched an attack on the Shia holy city of Najaf yesterday, and claimed fighters inside the city had forced them to retreat after suffering heavy losses.

Labels: Military

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