Posted by Biz on 04/02/06 19:19

Why are you posting this political BS in this NG? Quit cross posting to
inappropriate groups...


"JAS" <jasmine1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e0nf8v$q1d$2@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> This story horrified NZ the other night for those that watched the news on
> channel 3.
>
>
>
> Where has this story gone? Is it being told in the USA?
>
> "In one incident a U.S. army squad leader shot the foot off an unarmed
Iraqi
> civilian and fellow soldier kicked a severed head around as if they're in
a
> football match, described Joshua Key, a U.S. war deserter.
>
>
>
> Speaking to an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing on Thursday, Joshua
> Key, the first U.S. deserter with combat experience in Iraq to apply for
> refugee status in Canada, detailed what he said were numerous atrocities
> committed by U.S. Army he witnessed while serving eight months as a combat
> engineer in Iraq, according to the Canadian Press.
>
>
>
> Key, who was told in Iraq by superior officers that the international law
> guiding humanitarian standards was just a "guideline," said he was never
> trained on the Geneva Convention.
>
>
>
> "It's shoot first, ask questions later," Key, 27, said of his squad's
> guiding principles.
>
>
>
> "Everything's justified."
>
>
>
> Key, one of five members of the U.S. armed forces seeking asylum in
Canada,
> told the hearing he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and
> frequently has nightmares over the horrific scenes and the inhuman acts of
> the U.S. soldiers he witnessed in Iraq.
>
>
>
> As a member of the 43rd Combat Engineer Company, Key recalled taking part
in
> almost nightly raids on houses of what the military claimed belonged to
> suspected rebels in Ramadi and Fallujah.
>
>
>
> Key said soldiers ransacked homes and steal jewelry and money, while
> superior officers looked the other way, adding that those attacks on
seldom
> turned up anything valuable.
>
>
>
> During those raids, several Iraqis were shot dead, Key said, adding that
> there were cases where soldiers "shoot out of fear and invent reasons
> afterward."
>
>
>
> Key said he saw beheaded bodies of fours Iraqis beside a shot-up vehicle
in
> Ramadi. He also described seeing members of the Florida National Guard
> kicking a severed head "like a soccer ball."
>
>
>
> In Khaldia, a village between Fallujah and Ramadi, Key witnessed one of
his
> "trigger happy" platoon's squad sergeants shoot part of an unarmed Iraqi
> man's foot off.
>
>
>
> He also described another horrific scene where U.S. soldiers
> indiscriminately kick and scream at two hooded and naked group of Iraqis
> while escorting them to a grassy area to relieve themselves.
>
>
>
> Asked by Keith Brennenstuhl, the IRB member overseeing the hearing, ruled
at
> an earlier hearing that the board would not consider the legality of the
> U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, whether he received any interrogation training
> before snatching what the military called were suspects out of their homes
> during raids, Key said:
>
>
>
> "The only thing we were told was how to keep them quiet," Key said.
Soldiers
> cuffed prisoners' hands behind their backs and put hoods over their heads,
> key added.
>
>
>
> "Could they breathe?" Brennenstuhl asked.
>
>
>
> "I guess it wasn't my concern," replied Key, who also said that officers
> used the hoods with the aim of "humiliating them."
>
>
>
> Key, who says he went to Iraq as a willing participant believing U.S.
> intelligence claims that the former Iraqi Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons
> of Mass Destruction, noted he became disillusioned with the war during his
> service and thus decided to abandon his contract with the army during a
> two-week leave from Iraq in November 2003.
>
>
>
> Of the latest scandals involving the U.S. soldiers' inhuman acts in Iraq
was
> the Haditha incident where the American invaders murdered 15 Iraqi
> civilians.
>
>
>
> Ignoring residents' accounts about the Nov. 19 incident in Haditha where
> U.S. Marines killed 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old
girl,
> following a roadside bomb that killed a Marine, a U.S. military official,
> who asked not to be identified, claimed that it was common for Iraqi
rebels
> to fight from civilian homes and structures and place noncombatants in the
> line of fire.
>
>
>
> But a 10-year-old Iraqi girl, who lost seven members of her family in an
> attack by American marines in the horrific November incident, has
> exclusively given ITV News a shocking first hand account of the horrific
> Haditha massacre which residents say amounts to mass murder by U.S.
invader.
>
>
>
> According to the Iraqi girl's story, which has been disputed by the U.S.
> occupying Army, a group of screaming soldiers stormed Iman Waleed's house
in
> the Iraqi town of Haditha spraying bullets in every direction. 15 people
> were killed, including Iman's parents and grandparents.
>
>
>
> Although Iman's account was confirmed by other eyewitnesses who also said
> that the incident, described by human rights workers as the worst massacre
> of civilians by U.S. forces in the country since March 2003 invasion
began,
> was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed only one marine.
>
>
>
> A November statement issued by the U.S. military claimed that the incident
> was an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol that left 15 civilians, eight
> rebels and a U.S. Marine dead in the bombing and a subsequent firefight.
>
>
>
> But the claim had been rejected by numerous residents' accounts, which
> confirm that the only shooting after the bombing was by U.S. forces." NOW
I
> COULD ONLY FIND THIS STORY ON:
> http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/04/01/4562.shtml
>
>
>

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