How Many My Lais?

Felicity Arbuthnot, PalestineChronicle.com

The rightful furor over yet another US massacre, this time in the western Iraq town of Haditha, is somewhat belated since it happened in November and was instantly known to most Iraqis and Iraq watchers. Town representatives took evidence to the now puppet Iraq Prime Minister, Nuri Al Malaki near immediately. As for the comparison with My Lai, Iraq has suffered so many My Lai's resultant from the murderous, trigger happy, unaccountable troops, blink and you have missed one. What danger did a remote, rural wedding party pose, months after the invasion? Virtually every guest was multiply shot by American troops in cold blood. Inquiry? Apology? No chance. 'Even bad people have parties..' commented a US General of a slaughter where the youngest had not reached her first birthday. A survivor hiding in a ditch stated that soldiers stole jewelry off the bloodied, murdered women, dressed for celebration. 'We have a Haditha every day', merchant Mohammed Jassim told journalist Molly Ivens. Haditha was quite a small massacre as US massacres go. The massacre in the first onslaught on Falluja filled two football fields; numerous bodies were buried in gardens and yards, the survivors unable to take their beloved to cemeteries for fear of being shot themselves. In the second siege of Falluja, figures vary, but six thousand is not out of the question. Families were reportedly shot trying to swim the Euphrates to escape the horror...

continua / continued