glass in her eyes: wikileaks: collateral murder: daily civilian massacres iraq

a soldier from the collateral murder video has become vocal, in expression of sorrow and what actually was happening in Iraq.

Ethan McCord:

It was pretty much absolute carnage. I had never seen anybody shot by a 30-millimeter round before, and frankly don’t ever want to see that again. It almost seemed unreal, like something out of a bad B-horror movie. When these rounds hit you they kind of explode—people with their heads half-off, their insides hanging out of their bodies, limbs missing. I did see two RPGs on the scene as well as a few AK-47s.

But then I heard the cries of a child. They weren’t necessarily cries of agony, but more like the cries of a small child who was scared out of her mind. So I ran up to the van where the cries were coming from. You can actually see in the scenes from the video where another soldier and I come up to the driver and the passenger sides of the van.

The soldier I was with, as soon as he saw the children, turned around, started vomiting and ran. He didn’t want any part of that scene with the children anymore.

What I saw when I looked inside the van was a small girl, about three or four years old. She had a belly wound and glass in her hair and eyes. Next to her was a boy about seven or eight years old who had a wound to the right side of the head. He was laying half on the floorboard and half on the bench. I presumed he was dead; he wasn’t moving.

Next to him was who I presumed was the father. He was hunched over sideways, almost in a protective way, trying to protect his children. And you could tell that he had taken a 30-millimeter round to the chest. I pretty much knew that he was deceased.

I grabbed the little girl and yelled for a medic. Me and the medic ran into the houses behind where the van crashed to check whether there were any other wounds. I was trying to take as much glass out of her eyes as I could. We dressed the wound and then the medic ran the girl to the Bradley. You can hear in the video where he says, “there’s nothing else I can do here; we need to evacuate the child.”

in this article he describes how what happened in collateral murder was an everyday occurrence in Iraq.

the policy of 360 rotation---meant that you would spray bullets into everything and everyone in a 360 degree rotation, women and civilians included.

He goes, “If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherfucker on the street.” Myself and Josh and a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there looking at each other like, “Are you kidding me? You want us to kill women and children on the street?”

And you couldn’t just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into the roof of a building instead of down on the ground toward civilians. But I’ve seen it many times, where people are just walking down the street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them.

this was normal.

he saw himself on TV one day, in a scene he could not forget.

read here about his rescuing a baby from the massacre and trying to take the glass out of the eyes of the baby.  this image is stuck in my mind.  glass in her eyes.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/emcc-a28.shtml

his letter of reconciliation to the Iraqi people can be read here:

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2724

the war has been hurting us psychically for a long time.

in 2002 the four fort bragg suicides really freaked me out.  two of the soldiers killed their wives first.

four suicides, two of which were murder/suicides.

it freaked me out so much i went for a walk the day i heard that news, july 26 2002.

that night i was strangled and raped myself by a stranger who verbally abused me and covered me with bruises.

he strangled me until i saw stars.  he said, stop screaming or i'll kill you.  it was when i started screaming that i felt so strong, like i might outlive a lethal situation.

as with all carnage and violence, i feel it to be atmospheric.  if your TV box is full of war, and cinema is full of war, and capitalism drips with cruelty at every turn, the culture of violence begins to act like a machine.

the man who raped me was likely hopped up on some kind of speed, meth, coke or something.

that was nashville tennessee, and the cops didn't take it seriously.  the moment when he chose to stop choking me, and flee, that was a moment of grace.  he chose not to kill me.  rape was in his repertoire, but murder is where his conscience, or fear of punishment, caught up with him.

for all humans who are trafficked and victims of war, or war rape, military sexual trauma.

for jamie leigh.

for halliburton rape cover-ups.  kellogg brown and root, war contractors. 

http://www.kbr.com/

whose rape-gag clause means rape of colleagues will be gagged by a covenant not to sue.

that this company might receive USA federal defense funds and express such hostility to women's safety.