APOCALYPSE AND THE LEAKED SECRETS OF IRAQ WAR
I think the leak of the US classified document on Iraq released on 22nd. October 2010 is a very touchy subject that demands a careful pronouncements and rhetorics; of course, it is capable of disrupting our sublime ethos, causing contentious local and international interpretations, the truth again is that if the world is lucky, it could set agenda for a collective responsibility and new social order and understanding on human security.
Few days ago, the internet whistleblower, Wikileaks released a six year secret documents on US invasion, incursion or military campaign in Iraq, though inflammatory, the leak is a damning evidence. It chronicles dates, time and the commission of what may be referred to as war crimes under international laws, instruments on war and rules of engagement. It details cases of torture and killing of innocent civilian Iraqis. Not glossing here into specific details of the 400,000 cases recorded, my attempt here is a psychotic analysis based on my parochial and provincial dialect.
It is the height of ‘Odum Egege’, man injustice to man, an era when the birds in basest form becomes carnivorous like vulture and eat the intestine of other birds. Iraqi National Guard and Security Force killing, torturing and the use of optimum force on her citizenry could not be described less, the media reports and public discourse on the leak did not focus much on the fact that Iraqi forces actually carried out most of the crimes against humanity, but rather, attention has been on the American forces, or say the coalition forces who witnessed the crime and did nothing. I cannot say really if the action and or non action could be termed as accessories to crime. The expectations and world’s demand from the US is huge, enormous and unimaginably colossal, that the coalition forces under the US command witnessed war crimes and did nothing could be understandable as I will explain later, but that there is a document named FRAGO 039 (meaning fragmentation order 039) signed by General Sanchez to the troop to do nothing but to just report torture is most worrisome. Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defense Secretary openly and on camera affirmed this directive. Also, documents on Blackwater Security dark activities and black reign on the treacherous and cruel streets of Iraq where the spirit of the dead and the soul of the living conspired together to soak the thirty soil of Iraq with blood. Blackwater Security now Xe Services LLC is a private security cum military mercenary based in North Carolina which sees itself as a patriotic extension of the US military. Blackwater is well connected to the CIA and Pentagon, A number of senior CIA and Pentagon officials have taken top jobs at Blackwater, including firm vice chairman Cofer Black who was the Bush Administration's top counterterrorism official at the time of the 9/11 attacks, In fall 2005, Robert Richer resigned from the post of Associate Deputy Director of Operations; he immediately took a job as Blackwater's Vice President of Intelligence. Richer is a former head of the CIA's Near East Division and long served in Amman, where, for a period beginning in 1999, he held the post of Station Chief. For years he was the agency's point man with Jordan's King Abdullah, with whom he developed an extraordinarily close relationship, there's talk at the agency that Blackwater is also aggressively recruiting Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's current top spy as director of the National Clandestine Service. Rodriguez has a number of former agency friends at Blackwater, most notably Rick Prado, with whom he served in Latin America and who is now Blackwater's Vice President of Special Programs, Blackwater is the largest mercenary company in the world. Founded by Erik Prince, a secretive millionaire and right-wing Christian, was contracted by the US to provide security and escort for US officials and Diplomats in Iraq. The report account for cases where Blackwater officials fired at Iraqi civilians, there is no gainsaying to describe Blackwater operations in Iraq as ruthless and bizarre. Blackwater will soon be bankrupt and is presently up for sale, the company is faced with myriads of lawsuits, Alien Tort Act by Iraqi families, lawsuits from family of employees who died in combat, two former employees of Blackwater have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years through phony billing, including charging taxpayers for alcohol-filled parties, spa trips and having prostitutes that services personnel on government payroll, the company is facing a tax evasion case amounting to millions of dollars in the US, it has agreed to pay $42million as fines for violating several US export control regulations, the violations include illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, unauthorized proposals to train troops in southern Sudan, and providing sniper training for police officers in Taiwan and with the current episode of the leak document, there will be several many more suits against the company, it seems the days of the Blackwater on earth are numbered.
The UN is asking the American President to launch and enquiry into the leak, some are saying the alleged personnel be charged for war crimes and etc. The truth here is that Barrack Obama does not have the powers to launch such investigations; for anyone in America to try and charge or commit an American citizen to war crime court will be illegal. Americans personnel cannot be charged to war crime courts outside the American soil, they are immune from prosecutions abroad, though America is a signatory to several conventions on war crime, crime against humanity and genocide. For any American to be charged with war crimes especially as in this case in Iraq will surely take a while, there will be deliberations in the congress, there will be a legal instrument to the effect and etc, for it to be possible and it does not matter what anyone thinks or feels, it has to go through this procedures to avoid unconstitutionality in The US. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks got access to the documents through internal sources working within the Pentagon, individuals who are not happy about what is going on and decide to blow the whistle. Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a quite new organization with a takeoff grant of 2 million British pounds has been working closely with Channel 4, Aljazeera and others in spearheading the broadcast of the secrets in Iraq. Pentagon through his Spokesperson in responding to the leak few day ago, Geoff Morrell said that there are cases where the coalition forces intervened and there are times they did not actually witnessed the abuses or killings only knew about the acts after the commission, but down the command line, they are required to report incidents. It further condemns the leak and says it can incite hatred and cause Americans to be vulnerable. It says it put lives at risk but my question is that should the death of thousands in Iraq be covered to protect the lives of few Americans? Is an American live worth more than another national? The UN asserts the fundamental rights to life entitled by all, the equal rights of all human being and our equality before the law. Pentagon response to the leak in my view is weak, un-thoughtful and disdainfully arrogant. Is the world entitled to know what happened having been convinced on the need of a war in order to end the reign of abuse, torture and killings by Sadam Husein? Are the Americans whose tax money was used to fund the war be entitled to know the atrocities of the war?
To be really pragmatic and objective, let us examine the operations, and mode of military engagements in Iraq. The war in Iraq does not fit perfectly into known combat and rules of engagement. The enemies of the coalition forces are insurgents, forces within and outside Iraqi borders fighting to chase the US out of Iraq by all cost. The war in Iraq is not about a soldier to Soldier combat, but a Soldier to civilians turned soldiers. How do you define or profile who an insurgent is? Most of the times, it is after you are dead that you can actually know that the civilian that killed you is a military man in guise. An insurgent does not have a logo or uniform, it dresses, walks, talks and smell like any other person, he’s usually a Muslim, wearing a cap, often bearded and is religiously inclined-almost everyone in Iraq fit this profile, under his gown is a gun, he could strap bomb on his body and detonates it when close to the coalition forces. If the coalition forces were to abide strictly by the rules of engagement, then no US officials or single troop will still be alive in Iraq today. I remember few days to the war proper, former President Bush said with a toga of assuredness that the war will be very brief. It was evident that at the time, the US strategy was to eliminate Saddam and take over the country, set up a new military, a new government and back out of the country. But the first missile launched at assassinating Saddam failed, so the man went into hiding. The US did not expect what ensued afterwards, before Saddam could be captured eventually- many things have gone wrong, sectional, religious and political stance were not in favour of the coalition. US then suddenly realized its strategy and some of her intelligence information is false and people like Ahmed Chalabi had misinformed the government, Collin Powell had resigned. Young Americans were been killed and maimed for life on weekly basis by insurgents who looked like civilians, no WMD was found, oil for food scandal, booby traps everywhere. America was losing the war and very fast. US then need to design another plan, a new strategy on dealing with the civilian insurgence and this brought about the employment of Blackwater Security as plan B, to do what American army cannot do by law. Not making case for Blackwater, I believe for the company to succeed the personnel need to make split seconds decisions that could mean death or life on whom to attack, fire at on the hostile streets of Iraq, and sometimes they got it wrong by latching at innocent people because American has not designed the technology that can perfectly read the mind of an approaching terrorist and innocent Iraqi. The officer will have to make the on the spot decision based on his sometimes faulty profiling emanating from his fear of death of becoming the next victim of a detonated explosive device. It is very easy to cast blame and aspersion from distance, but these guys are in the frontlines of battle, fighting enemies that strike secretly and covertly, they are constantly living with fear not knowing where the next suicide bomber will be or waiting for them. The loss of their friends and colleagues in the war as results of abiding by the rules of engagement may have caused them to throw caution to wind and the only way to deal with the situation is to be ruthless. Despite the knowledge of Blackwater actions, the Pentagon renewed the mercenary contract in Iraq, which means the US is satisfied with the company’s success irrespective of the discrepancies. In June 2010, the Director of CIA Leon Panetta awarded a contract of 100 million dollars to Blackwater to provide security for Diplomats in Afghanistan, that same month Hillary Clinton signed another contract worth 120 million dollars to the company to provide security in Afghanistan, although the contract in Iraq was not renewed last year.
In war, all laws are silent, and when the law is silent, human become beast. Since someone must be buried for the leaks of the war secrets, it naturally shows that Blackwater will not go scot free, the world will soon be calling for the head of Mr. Prince, but then to be fair, Mr. Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, Gen Sanchez and others cannot be blameless in this case, whatever fate befalls the owner of Blackwater must befall others. Beyond just the US and Iraq, the leak goes into the heart of international happenings. What is the difference between Charles Taylor and Blackwater and Mr. Rumsfeld? Why should the man from Sudan be facing warrant of arrest and some people are having fun in Washington? Whatever justification could be given to defend the leak could be used by those facing war crime charges. I personally believe strongly that all these convention on this and that as regards wars is arrant nonsense, they cannot be relied on as salvation, they are not sustainable, practicable and can never reflect reality of wars. The focus of the world through the UN, if the world body will still be relevant for another century is to focus on world peace by the understanding and commitment to human security as against national security, to be seen and believed to be truly impartial and not propagating the dictates of some few countries at the expense of others. I watched with surprise at the heel of Iraqi war when Mr. Kofi Annan called for international humanitarian assistance as if Mr. Annan saw into the future of the country before it happened. If UN had insisted all along and forced America to shelve the war or not even go to the war in the first place, had the UN and US ply other routes aside war would not have led to this global mess that will not subside soon. The only good thing about all these special courts and commissions on war is that some people are engaged and get good salary. It is not working, it is useless, we need a new social order in the world, a global disarmament, where nuclear trade and deal are not allowed by any state, whether US, Russia, Israel, Iran or whatever. Global atmospheres where we think more about what binds us together and think less on things that separates, because it is very easy to think and focus on what separates. The only triumph of man in the last centuries, the only thing that has advanced human existence is the collective agreement to respect and preserve the human life. So if the value placed on human life is diminishing, then human race is gradually racing into extinction, an extinction that will be guaranteed in further advancement of military might, nuclear probabilities, and evil inventions. The bible portends the end of the world, apocalyptic destruction of the earth and the accursed inhabitants; it seems the world is navigating towards this direction. I will stop to make further comments on this case and watch as all unfolds. On a final note, peace in Iraq will take a decade or so when there will be no incident for six months a stretch. On August 17th. 2010, two weeks before the exit of American troop in Iraq, a suicide bomber killed 57, people and wounded another 120 people at a military recruitment centre in Iraq. So if a suicide bomber is arrested or a bomb making factory is captured and people arrested, it can explain how these people will be treated and this can justify the brutality of the Iraq forces on her citizen, Iraq is a war zone, and during war, mercy and kindness are very scarce commodities. I do not envy Iraq, I am very happy I am not an Iraqi and Iraq is the last destination I wish to visit soon. I am learning to appreciate my country Nigeria more than ever…say what you like; it is not close to as bad as Iraq is. One thing is clear is that though it may take some years, and more blood the soil of Iraq will suck, the foundation for a democratic Iraq has been laid, a foundation that will rise to become the shining light in the Middle East. One thing that is also clear is that America in all her faults and frailties, is committed in propagating democracy and human rights around the world, I still have so much respect for the country. Where it be some banana republic, or some War Lords, the account will never been known except through witness accounts. America documented their secret errors; it shows a nation with deep sense of responsibility, accountability and deep desire to abide to procedures, rules and ethics. I duck my hat for America and wish people can see from this!
YINKA OLA-WILLIAMS MR Y SPECIALISE IN MEDIA AND DEVELOPMENT. HAVE WORKED IN VARRIED SETTINGS LOCALLY AND INTERNATIONALY. A PLAYWRIGHT, DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER. MR Y AMONGST OTHERS IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON AN INVESTIGATIVE DOCUMENTARY SERIES TITLED MR Y INVESTIGATIONS...AN INDEPTH, ANALYTICAL AND NEW PERSPECTIVE PROGRAMME. MR Y IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF CHANGE STUDIOS, A CONTENT CREATION AND HIGH QUALITY PRODUCTIONS COMPANY BASED IN LAGOS, NIGERIA.
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