Throughout the history of the United States, everywhere U.S. soldiers have waged wars or occupations, or been stationed, local women have been treated as the victims and spoils of war. From the bloody frontier wars that began this country, where U.S. soldiers made trophies and souvenirs from the mutilated body parts of Native American women,2 to the rings of brothels and strip clubs surrounding every U.S. overseas base, to the rapes of women in places like the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, where U.S. soldiers are often immune from prosecution by those country's laws. And this ugly legacy of the U.S. military is alive and well today in Iraq.
Rape and sexual assault are not just openly tolerated in the U.S. occupation of Iraq—they are encouraged. Look at what happened in Abu Ghraib. Men being forced to masturbate and pose naked. The rapes and sexual assaults of women, men, and children. All captured on thousands of photos depicting smiling soldiers. Soldiers testified that they were doing these things to “soften up” the prisoners for interrogation.
In an environment where a woman has every reason not to report a rape, it is impossible to know how many women have been raped and abused by U.S. soldiers. Many times women are blamed, shamed and punished for being raped. Woman who are raped know that they could be accused of “staining the family honor” and severely punished, even killed, especially in areas that follow a strict interpretation of Islamic law. (Sharia, or a strict interpretation of the Koran, condemns women to death for being raped—for engaging in the crime of having “sex outside of marriage.”)
This is the fifth time in only two months that the murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops has come to light. Reuters news service published a timeline of 18 major incidents in three years: In March 2006, U.S. soldiers killed eight people, including a teenage boy, when they raided a home. In February 2006, a U.S. soldier killed an unarmed man in Ramadi and two other soldiers placed an AK-47 by the body, to make it seem that they had just shot an “insurgent” (a tactic taken straight from cops in the United States when they murder people and plant a “throw-down gun.”) National Public Radio reported on June 21 that seven U.S. soldiers killed a 52-year-old disabled man by dragging him into a ditch and shooting him, then throwing a shovel and an AK-47 by his body to make it seem he had been caught in the act of digging a roadside bomb. (See “Chronology: U.S. troops and civilian complaints in Iraq”).
And then, once again, even after five incidents reported in two months—the official chorus comes out like a sick refrain: “These were bad apples/isolated incidents/aberrations.”
But these crimes are NOT aberrations. They are a concentration of and reflect the very nature of the U.S. military and the U.S. occupation of Iraq: The constant fear of being killed at a wedding, or when walking down the street, or in your home. The sickening knowledge that your teenage daughter is being stalked by armed occupiers. The fear that you could be shot dead in an instant when driving through a checkpoint or whenever U.S. troops knock on your door. The daily humiliation of checkpoints and leering U.S. soldiers.
This is the nature of the U.S. occupation. And the unofficial policies of rape and murder are designed to break the spirit of the Iraqi people. The U.S. is enforcing a hated and brutal occupation on the people of Iraq. And an indispensable part of this is inculcating soldiers with a colonial mentality that treats the Iraqi people as subhuman and considers their lives worth nothing. Rapes, massacres, and brutal torture are inevitable when you have such a mentality, encouraged and backed from the highest levels of the military and up to the White House.
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"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." Ronald Reagan 
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Cookie Parker
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