BBC interviewnonconformist said:I just found this incredible BBC interview with a Marine. What he says is stunning.
And here is the transcript:
(warning, pretty long, that's why it's in spoiler tags, to keep the thread readable
)Spoiler :
Reporter: An American marine says the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq which he witnessed was inevitable giving what soldiers were told by superiors about the threat facing them. Its such killings which have fueled the uprising against coalition forces. Jimmy massy is a former staff sergeant who left the marines in November after 12 years. I asked him about the way us soldiers treated civilians in Iraq.
Jimmy: we killed a lot of innocent civilians. We were given intelligence reports at that time saying that the faydeheen and the republican guard had taken off their uniforms and had started wearing civilian clothes and were mounting attacks against the US forces in Baghdad. They were telling us that there were ambulances that were loaded with explosives, that they were using copcars, you know for suicide bombings. So when we went in to Baghdad, my marines were pretty hiked up on all these intelligence reports. We didn't know who the bad guy was. To us every civilian in Baghdad was a terrorist. There was no other way for us to look at it. So when we would have these civilians come into our checkpoints with their vehicles we would fire a warning shot and tell them to stop but if they came within our perimeter we'd lit them up. And every time we'd lid them up we were expecting to have secondary explosions or hear ammunition go off in the car. And when we would pull the body out and we would search the car we would find nothing. This took place time and time again.
Reporter: didn't the soldiers learn from that, didn't they realize that many of these people were just civilians?
Jimmy: It's kinda hard when you don't know who to trust, when the bad guys are everywhere. It really plays on your psyche after a while. Its like this you know this yeckell and Hyde mentality, one minute you are playing humanitarian passing out the candy to the little kids and then two seconds later you're having to switch over to be a killer.
Reporter: So there was nothing actually senior command could have done to try to change the way the.... US military were behaving?
Jimmy: The rules of engagement are determined by the intelligence reports that we received. If the intelligence reports say that these individuals these fedayeen are now in civilian clothes that makes everybody free game. And I know it says in the Geneva Convention as well you do not shoot nonenemy combatants, you do not shoot civilians. When you have a child die in your arms because of an American airraid and the concussion from the bomb that was landed right next to his window causes him to have internal damage and he dies right in front of your arms you start questioning what's going on.
Reporter: this why you said you felt we were committing genocide?
Jimmy: that is correct.
Reporter: and yet genocide is politically directed.
Jimmy: yes.
Reporter: would you say that of the war in Iraq that this genocide was politically directed, this killing.
Jimmy: yes, I feel that way. With these reports that were given out to us, it's giving the American soldier free reign to make the judgement call on the battlefield wheither or not that person is a civilian or it's not a civilian. However there is no consequences for him pulling that trigger if he pulls that trigger and discovers that that individual was a civilian, no harm no foul, that's ok, don't worry about it. Because this a new type of war, this is a eradication war, we are there to eradicate terrorists, or the democracy in Iraq to start to thrive, but we have to get rid of the terrorists first, what happens if you don't know who the terrorists are? What happens when you think that the kid that you see peddling his bicycle he looks fourteen years old but he could be a terrorist. And then you know you follow him and you see him doing something shady like pulling out an AK or something like that that he's got hid behind a shed. So you decide to pop him in the grave, you know shoot him in the head, and then you go over and you find out that the weapon that he was picking up didn't even work, it didn't even have the internal parts. Within the machinegun to fire. So wouldn't that make you a killer if you done something like that?
Reporter: you obviously felt very uncomfortable and you went to your superiors, what did they say?
Jimmy: after quite a few of the civilian casualties that we had taken over there I was really at a boiling point and we were at a morning battleplan meeting, my luitanant after the meeting came up to me and asked if I was feeling ok, and I told him no I wasn't feeling ok, you know I was having a hard time dealing with the things that we were doing over there and he asked me to elaborate and I told him I said well sir I honestly feel that we're committing genocide over here, and he didn't like that. Subsequently after me saying that I knew that my career was gonna be short in the Marine Corps. They basically forced my resignation from being a platoon sergeant. At that time I didn't have any polls about resigning my position that I told them that they were wrong and that I didn't their money and that I didn't want their benefits. When I got out of the marine corps I was gonna tell who ever would listen, it got really ugly, I had to hire an attorney because they tried to label me as a conscious objector and I told them that I wasnt a consciousness objector I believe that there are some wars that were worth fighting however I don't believe in killing civilians and Im not going to kill civilians for the united states marine corps.
Reporter: how many of your fellow soldiers felt the same?
Jimmy: I had quite a few of my younger troops coming up to me and asking me off the record about what was going on, and of course with me being in a senior position, you know, Im not gonna tell em my true feelings I just looked at them and told them, listen, you know, marine, you 're over here to do a job, you're over here to help establish a democracy here in Iraq and it's tough.
Reporter: and when you saw the pictures about what was happening in Abu Graib, were you surprised?
Jimmy: now I wasn't surprised.
Reporter: did you think that sort of thing was widespread?
Jimmy I think it s widespread in the us military, period.
Reporter: what, around the world?
Jimmy: correct, army, navy, airforce marines...
Reporter: and why do you think that is?
Jimmy: I think because American soldiers, and especially American marines are dehumanized, they are dehumanized from day one that they enter bootcamp. And the American armed forces has worked with the Israelis, quite extensively, and we 've patterned a lot of our training after the Israelis, well we all know what's going with that. That uh, to, you know basically dehumanize a soldier so they, you know, they have the self-confidence or have the selfdirection to pull the trigger even if it's a civilian.
Reporter: jimmy massy many thanks
Jimmy: we killed a lot of innocent civilians. We were given intelligence reports at that time saying that the faydeheen and the republican guard had taken off their uniforms and had started wearing civilian clothes and were mounting attacks against the US forces in Baghdad. They were telling us that there were ambulances that were loaded with explosives, that they were using copcars, you know for suicide bombings. So when we went in to Baghdad, my marines were pretty hiked up on all these intelligence reports. We didn't know who the bad guy was. To us every civilian in Baghdad was a terrorist. There was no other way for us to look at it. So when we would have these civilians come into our checkpoints with their vehicles we would fire a warning shot and tell them to stop but if they came within our perimeter we'd lit them up. And every time we'd lid them up we were expecting to have secondary explosions or hear ammunition go off in the car. And when we would pull the body out and we would search the car we would find nothing. This took place time and time again.
Reporter: didn't the soldiers learn from that, didn't they realize that many of these people were just civilians?
Jimmy: It's kinda hard when you don't know who to trust, when the bad guys are everywhere. It really plays on your psyche after a while. Its like this you know this yeckell and Hyde mentality, one minute you are playing humanitarian passing out the candy to the little kids and then two seconds later you're having to switch over to be a killer.
Reporter: So there was nothing actually senior command could have done to try to change the way the.... US military were behaving?
Jimmy: The rules of engagement are determined by the intelligence reports that we received. If the intelligence reports say that these individuals these fedayeen are now in civilian clothes that makes everybody free game. And I know it says in the Geneva Convention as well you do not shoot nonenemy combatants, you do not shoot civilians. When you have a child die in your arms because of an American airraid and the concussion from the bomb that was landed right next to his window causes him to have internal damage and he dies right in front of your arms you start questioning what's going on.
Reporter: this why you said you felt we were committing genocide?
Jimmy: that is correct.
Reporter: and yet genocide is politically directed.
Jimmy: yes.
Reporter: would you say that of the war in Iraq that this genocide was politically directed, this killing.
Jimmy: yes, I feel that way. With these reports that were given out to us, it's giving the American soldier free reign to make the judgement call on the battlefield wheither or not that person is a civilian or it's not a civilian. However there is no consequences for him pulling that trigger if he pulls that trigger and discovers that that individual was a civilian, no harm no foul, that's ok, don't worry about it. Because this a new type of war, this is a eradication war, we are there to eradicate terrorists, or the democracy in Iraq to start to thrive, but we have to get rid of the terrorists first, what happens if you don't know who the terrorists are? What happens when you think that the kid that you see peddling his bicycle he looks fourteen years old but he could be a terrorist. And then you know you follow him and you see him doing something shady like pulling out an AK or something like that that he's got hid behind a shed. So you decide to pop him in the grave, you know shoot him in the head, and then you go over and you find out that the weapon that he was picking up didn't even work, it didn't even have the internal parts. Within the machinegun to fire. So wouldn't that make you a killer if you done something like that?
Reporter: you obviously felt very uncomfortable and you went to your superiors, what did they say?
Jimmy: after quite a few of the civilian casualties that we had taken over there I was really at a boiling point and we were at a morning battleplan meeting, my luitanant after the meeting came up to me and asked if I was feeling ok, and I told him no I wasn't feeling ok, you know I was having a hard time dealing with the things that we were doing over there and he asked me to elaborate and I told him I said well sir I honestly feel that we're committing genocide over here, and he didn't like that. Subsequently after me saying that I knew that my career was gonna be short in the Marine Corps. They basically forced my resignation from being a platoon sergeant. At that time I didn't have any polls about resigning my position that I told them that they were wrong and that I didn't their money and that I didn't want their benefits. When I got out of the marine corps I was gonna tell who ever would listen, it got really ugly, I had to hire an attorney because they tried to label me as a conscious objector and I told them that I wasnt a consciousness objector I believe that there are some wars that were worth fighting however I don't believe in killing civilians and Im not going to kill civilians for the united states marine corps.
Reporter: how many of your fellow soldiers felt the same?
Jimmy: I had quite a few of my younger troops coming up to me and asking me off the record about what was going on, and of course with me being in a senior position, you know, Im not gonna tell em my true feelings I just looked at them and told them, listen, you know, marine, you 're over here to do a job, you're over here to help establish a democracy here in Iraq and it's tough.
Reporter: and when you saw the pictures about what was happening in Abu Graib, were you surprised?
Jimmy: now I wasn't surprised.
Reporter: did you think that sort of thing was widespread?
Jimmy I think it s widespread in the us military, period.
Reporter: what, around the world?
Jimmy: correct, army, navy, airforce marines...
Reporter: and why do you think that is?
Jimmy: I think because American soldiers, and especially American marines are dehumanized, they are dehumanized from day one that they enter bootcamp. And the American armed forces has worked with the Israelis, quite extensively, and we 've patterned a lot of our training after the Israelis, well we all know what's going with that. That uh, to, you know basically dehumanize a soldier so they, you know, they have the self-confidence or have the selfdirection to pull the trigger even if it's a civilian.
Reporter: jimmy massy many thanks
...
