Baquba: ' A kill sack'

Operation 'Arrowhead Ripper' is underway. A new America killing field is opening up. The victims are the residents of Baquba, captol of Iraq's Diyala governorate. As the killers move in, they are targetting, as ever, 'Al-Qaeda.'

If the pet cat or dog was run over, anywhere on the globe, it begins to feel likely a US spokesperson would blame Al Qaeda.

' We are enveloping the enemy into a kill sack,' said Command Sergeant Major Jeff Huggins from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade, according to Reuters (23rd June.)

A 'kill sack'? Good luck America, when these sickos return home. Shutter the windows, barr the doors - and above all, lock up your daughters. Remember little Abeer al-Janabi, multiply raped in nearby in Mahmoudiya, her family shot and she and all burned to cover the evidence? Remember Abu Ghraib? And where else?

Think rape, rape, rape, sodomy, sodomy, sodomy - think the furthest other reaches of the most bestial inhumanity to man, women and yes, children.

Think of America's finest selling the pictures of the dead, dying, defiled on the internet, in exchange for porn. Think also of chains of command. Where does the cover up start and how high does it go?

'We are not carpet bombing these things.* People know if we get resistance from a house, we'll take out that house and the people in it, but not the entire street.' How thoughtful.

Any one reflected that most on earth would 'resist' their home being trashed by strangers, their children and women terrified (or worse) at 3 a.m. (or any time) risking also any belongings of value and money stolen? Residents have no right to refuse and can be shot (no questions asked later) for just that. *Iraqis, please note, it seems, are now 'things'.

U.S. air strikes on Saturday killed 'suspected al Qaeda' fighters in Tikrit in Salahuddin province and near the city of Falluja, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement (Reuters, 23rd June.) Suspected? Where are the arrests, trials and judicial decisions in this democratic experiment?

In Afghanistan, 'suspected' members of 'Al Qaeda' on the same day, reportedly included a five month old and two year old. More 'things'? Or infanticide? Baquba's 'kill sack' and Dyala, are famed for their palm gorves and fruit orchards, especially citrus trees.

Arab historians of old referred to 'innumerable trees and plentiful waters.' It is an area especially important because of its ancient culture. Archeologists have uncovered ancient settlements dating back about six thousand years, to the 'dawn of dynasties', the Babylonian period and that of the Al-Ubaid.

Palaces, cities and ancient temples have been excavated, along with thousands of the earliest testimonies: clay tablets and cylinder seals. Finds inclided an alabaster statue of a Sumerian lady, perfect, unique, irreplaceable, dating back to 2,600 years BC., was uncovered in the province, as was a superb pottery jar, decorated in red, dating back to 2,700 BC.

This culturally important area remained so, throughout the various Islamic eras, only to be rendered a 'kill sack' in 2007. Baquba has, it seems, has had its 'plentiful waters' sealed off, and electricity is cut off, as has happened in every US effort at 'pacification' (read : killing) in specific defiance of the Geneva Convention (but who cares, the US Administration now long declared itself outside the law.)

In the unlikely case there is a conscience out there, here (again) is Article 54 of the Additional Protocols of 1977. 'Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is forbidden.' Denying the civilian population water is just as illgal as denying them food. 'It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless, objects indispensible to the survival of the civilian population.'

As I write, more members of Saddam Hussein's government - still legitimate, since the war was illegal - have been sentenced to the barbarity of hanging, for 'crimes against humanity.' When will jungle justice at least be even handed?

And as flags fly at half mast in American towns, when will they realise that their sons did not die ' defending our country', but died fighting in the 'supreme crime' of an illegal invasion of a proud, but broken country, who, with Afghanistan posed them no threat. They died for a lie. 'A meshing together of fantasies', as described of wars horrific disaster, by writer, Pat Barker.

This week there was an article about the deaths of Americans in Iraq 'and a terp'. What was a terp? Some animal mascot? No, it was an interpreter, prepared tor risk his life with and for them, but not even worthy of a title or name.

Another statement which arose this week from the US military, regarding accidental deaths was: 'They are only Iraqis'. The whole of Iraq, just 'a kill sack'.

Need more be said?