WAR IN IRAQ BRUTALIZES U.S. SOLDIERS IN TREATMENT OF IRAQI CIVILIANS

The Nation has published (July 30, 2007 issue) a distressing but important story by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian last week, called "The Other War - Iraq Vets Bear Witness." The article describes events that show how brutalized war makes soldiers, yes soldiers of the United States in Iraq. We like to think that the Americans are exceptional, that we are all bound by the rule of law, that we are motiviated by good will and idealism towards fellow human beings. Here is another side of America that demonstrates that Americans can be cruel, mean and sadistic.

"Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts."

Here's only one description out of many from the article. The account describes the policy of army convoys speeding down Iraqi roads and highways.

"Convoys did not slow down or attempt to brake when civilians inadvertently got in front of their vehicles, according to the veterans who described them. Sgt. Kelly Dougherty, 29, from Cañon City, Colorado, was based at the Talil Air Base in Nasiriya with the Colorado National Guard's 220th Military Police Company for a year beginning in February 2003. She recounted one incident she investigated in January 2004 on a six-lane highway south of Nasiriya that resembled numerous incidents described by other veterans.

""It's like very barren desert, so most of the people that live there, they're nomadic or they live in just little villages and have, like, camels and goats and stuff," she recalled. "There was then a little boy--I would say he was about 10 because we didn't see the accident; we responded to it with the investigative team--a little Iraqi boy and he was crossing the highway with his, with three donkeys. A military convoy, transportation convoy driving north, hit him and the donkeys and killed all of them. When we got there, there were the dead donkeys and there was a little boy on the side of the road.

""We saw him there and, you know, we were upset because the convoy didn't even stop," she said. "They really, judging by the skid marks, they hardly even slowed down. But, I mean, that's basically--basically, your order is that you never stop." "