Kerryn Higgs, an Australian in New York, has reported for Webdiary on Richard Clarke’s evidence to the S11 inquiry in Bush before September 11: the awful truth and Bush on the ropes: his awful deeds post S11.
New York, Wednesday April 14th: Here today, the 9/11 Commission concluded two days interviewing intelligence officials and turning up new shreds of evidence about warnings ignored.
At the same time, Bush and Sharon conducted a mutually congratulatory press event (�historic and courageous�) where the US gave the green light to Israel�s settlements in the West Bank � now to be termed �population centres� � as well as denying any right of return for Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel.
All at odds with international law, but who cares? There was no Palestinian presence at the Whitehouse. In the voice of the Palestinian representative who held a press conference afterwards, though dignified and level, you could hear his deep distress and hopelessness. These moves are bound to further degrade U.S. relations with the Arab world, including Iraq. Not to mention the fate of the Palestinians.
On Iraq, I was interested to see that, though the SMH reported the concerns of British officers about U.S. attacks using disproportionate violence, it chose to leave out a key sentence referring to the attitude of the US troops – that they see the Iraqis as �untermenschen�, a term Hitler used to describe Jews, gypsies and other �racially inferior� groups:
“My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don’t see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful.
“The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn’t in Iraq. It’s easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.”
These comments resonated with those of a soldier I heard quoted on TV here just before the initial assault on Fallujah � he was saying how they all felt really good about going into battle and settling the score over the desecrated bodies of the four security men.
The SMH did, however report the difference between British rules of engagement and the US approach:
“British troops would never be given clearance to carry out attacks such as the US helicopter gunship assaults on targets in urban areas.
“When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though . . . it may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area.”
This is deeply troubling, especially when U.S. sources keep insisting that preternatural care is being taken to avoid civilian targets � while there is endless evidence of civilian carnage on many sites, including those listed on your webpage. But it also helps to explain the discrepancy.
Tonight, it appears that the �ceasefire� might break down and Fallujah is in danger of being “levelled:
…as Marines traded gun and mortar fire with rooftop snipers and fighters on the northern edge of Fallujah, some of them anticipated a bloody push to take the city of 200,000 people, a stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgents.
“If they’re trying to find a peaceful way out of this, great. But at this point, there seem to be few options other than to get innocents out and level it, wipe it clear off the map,” said 1st Lt. Frank Dillbeck, scanning the city’s outskirts with binoculars during a relative lull in fighting.