More atrocities by US forces in Iraq uncovered...Abu Ghraib 2.0 in Fallujah

[Editor`s note: And they dare called Saddam the 'Butcher of Baghdad?' Who has killed more Iraqis, the US or Saddam, and has subjected the Iraqis to cruel and inhumane punishment? If Saddam was truly guilty, why put him through a kangaroo court and hang like a dog for trumped-up charges for responsding to a presidential assassination. Where were the decades of human torture he stood blindingly accused of? The great country of the Tigris and Euphrates has been left in utter shambles, not reminiscent of its past glory and before the war...yet countless Iraqis continue to die like cannon fodder with no end in sight...who is ULTIMATELY responsible and will face justice? Unfortunately, these are things we will never understand till the good Lord above judges...]

Abu Ghraib 2.0? Horrifying images of US Marines burning Iraqis prompt military investigation
RT NEWS
January 15, 2014


[WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW]

The picture that defined the Abu Ghraib
prisoner torture, credit: wikipedia

The Pentagon confirmed early Wednesday that a formal investigation has been launched after photographs began to surface purportedly showing US troops burning the remains of dead Iraqis.

Those images were published Wednesday morning by website TMZ, which claims to have recently come into possession of 41 photos in all that they believe to have been taken in Fallujah sometime in 2004 amid the US-led Iraq occupation.

The website has only published eight of the images, including ones in which men appearing to be US Marines are seen dousing the dead with chemicals and setting them ablaze. TMZ is withholding the majority of the photographs, however, because many are simply “too gruesome,” they claim, including one alleged to be in their possession showing a human body being devoured by dogs and another covered in flies.

Among the photographs that were published by TMZ is one in which a man in full military garb is shown holding his high-powered firearm to what appears to be the charred remains of a human skull.

According to the website, the photographs were turned over to the US Department of Defense last week. TMZ says that Col. Steve Warren, the Pentagon’s director of press operations, told them the images do seem to show US servicemen engaged in unlawful activity.

Now as authorities begin their probe, the latest leak may uncover the most embarrassing incident of its kind to plague the US military since images taken inside America's now infamous Abu Ghraib prison were published nearly 10 years ago.

When those photographs were first published almost a decade ago, images showed the world horrific instances of abuse and torture that even today remains one of the biggest scars to mar the Iraq War and occupation during its nearly nine-year-long duration. Eleven US troops were convicted for their conduct there.

With regard to the latest leaked images, Col. Warren also confirmed the existence of an investigation to Stars & Stripes, a news outlet carried out as a service of the US Defense Media Activity. That website is refusing to publish the images until more information about them develops.

Warren informed Stars & Stripes that the US Marine Corps is conducting the military’s probe, and Capt. Richard Ulsh, communications director for the Marine Corps, told the Pentagon-affiliated paper that an investigation has indeed been launched to examine the veracity of the photographs, the circumstances involved and possibly the identity of the alleged servicemen caught on film.

“The findings from this investigation will determine whether we are able to move forward with any investigation into possible wrongdoing,” Capt. Ulsh said.

As far as Pentagon spokesman Warren is concerned, though, the Defense Department can’t at this time say for certain that the alleged troops seen in the images engaged in any conduct that without a doubt fails to comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“On the burning, you know, it’s hard to tell [whether it’s a violation of the UCMJ],” he told Stars & Stripes. “While we don’t routinely burn human remains, there are circumstances when that might be necessary for hygiene, health — things like that.”

Mishandling human remains is a violation of the UCMJ, however, and the results of the just-launched Marine Corps investigation may soon call for a court-martial to convene in order to prosecute anyone thought to be affiliated with unlawful activity uncovered by TMZ.

"The actions that are depicted in these photos are not in any way representative of the honorable, professional service of the two-and-a-half million service members who went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade,” Col. Warren told TMZ.

Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Ty Balzer echoed Warren’s remarks when reached for comment by the New York Daily News early Wednesday.

“I can’t stress that enough,” Capt. Balzer said. “Service members go over there and follow the rules, they really do.”

Even taking into consideration the Abu Ghraib incident, the most recent embarrassment suffered by the military is hardly the first as of late. In January 2012, video footage made its way to the web showing US troops urinating on the bodies of what appeared to be slain Afghans, and several months later the Los Angeles Times published photographs depicting US soldiers posing with the gory remains of several Afghan suicide bombers.

A spokesperson at the Pentagon press office’s Iraq desk did not immediately return RT’s request for a comment on TMZ’s alleged Fallujah images.

Horrific: Shocking images depicting U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of what appear to be Iraqi insurgents, have emerged today

Burning: The explosive photographs, reportedly taken in Fallujah in 2004, appear to show U.S. soldier pouring gasoline on the bodies of Iraqi insurgents

Grim: Many of the 41 gag-inducing shots are just too grisly to publish

probe: The gruesome images have already sparked a Marine Corps investigation

Charred: Two more pictures capture the horrifically charred bodies

Pentagon: The sick snaps were exclusively obtained by TMZ, who turned them over to the Pentagon last week, triggering the probe

Posing: Other horrific pictures show a Marine squatting next to a skull to pose for the camera. His U.S. military uniform is clear, on his face he wears a wide grin and he is pointing his gun at the skeleton

Pickpocket: The Department of Defense said the pictures appear to show U.S. soldiers in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The code outlines that it is a crime to mishandle remains

Read more:
Home Pics of Marines Burning Bodies Trigger U.S. Military Investigation [PHOTOS] Iraqi Death Scene Pics of Marines Burning Bodies Trigger U.S. Military Investigation [PHOTOS]

Remember Lynndie England at the heart of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: says she will not apologize to the 'enemy'

ABU GHRAIB’S GRASP
8 years later, abuse soldier Lynndie England tells of her anguish – but won’t apologize to ‘enemy’

By M.L. Nestel
The Daily
Monday, March 19, 2012


PHOTO:Brian Zak/The Daily - Lynndie England became the face of America’s shame in the Abu Ghraib scandal eight years ago. England was convicted of abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners.

FORT ASHBY, W.Va. — Eight years before an American soldier shot 16 civilians in Afghanistan, there was another case of tragic military misconduct that ruined lives and threatened to derail a war effort.

Today, the former soldier who became the callous, “thumbs-up” emblem of the Abu Ghraib scandal lives with her parents in rural West Virginia, raising the son of the man who perpetrated the worst of the torture at the Iraqi prison. Things are so rough for her, Lynndie England told The Daily in a wide-ranging interview, that she has trouble finding much reason to feel bad for the detainees she and her colleagues abused.

“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”

The latest atrocity, in which U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of massacring women and children in Afghanistan villages, is a reminder of the stain Abu Ghraib left on the American military effort in Iraq. England’s lawyer declined to comment on Bales and she didn’t respond to a phone message.

England was front and center in the explosive photographs that depicted physical, sexual and psychological abuse of Iraqi detainees at the prison near Baghdad. The scandal that erupted in 2004 was a disastrous blight on the Iraq war and the George W. Bush White House, leading to calls for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

In one photo, England dangles a cigarette from her half-cocked smile as she gives what became popularized as “doing the Lynndie” — a thumbs-up with her right hand and gesture with her left like a gun toward a row of naked detainees with hoods covering their heads.

“All the prisoners that were there were on that tier of high-priority. They were there for a reason. They had killed coalition forces or they were planning to,” England told The Daily over a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant near her home in Fort Ashby. “They had information about where insurgents were hiding.”

England and 10 fellow soldiers were slapped with dishonorable discharges and stints in a military brig. She was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act in 2005 and served 521 days in a military prison.

England grew up in the backwaters of Appalachia and despite earning good marks in high school, she was hell-bent on escaping what she saw as a life destined to be behind the cash register of the local IGA supermarket. So she joined the Army.

Now 29, England is back in her parents’ home. She is virtually unemployable and haunted by her past. Charles Graner, her former lover and the ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses, refuses to acknowledge his 7-year-old son despite a 2009 paternity test proving he is the father

“Graner didn’t want anything to do with the baby,” England said.

The two met while stationed at Fort Lee in Virginia in 2003. She was a 20-year-old newlywed, he a divorced 34-year-old former Marine. England said she succumbed to Graner’s gregarious personality and charm. Their baby was conceived in Iraq, but all the while, Graner was two-timing England with a third Abu Ghraib specialist, Megan Ambuhl.

“You could say I did love Graner,” England said. “Now, I can’t stand the thought of him.”

The tumult of the last decade has left England visibly anguished. Gray strands have appeared in her long, dark hair.

The Army dishonorably discharged her last year, formally severing her surrogate family. She misses the routine of the service; the food, the uniform. She still wears her old camouflage gear while doing yard work.

“It just feels like the umbilical cord has been cut,” she said. “I could really go for an MRE right now,” she said of the Army’s meals ready to eat.

With no help or career counseling from Uncle Sam, England found herself with a radioactive name in a bleak job market in rural West Virginia. She tried to co-author a memoir with a local history author, but she claims he stole her story and published the book on his own. The only employment England can muster is seasonal secretarial work for a sympathetic accountant who has known her since she was a teen.

“I would put out applications everywhere. I can’t get McDonald’s, Burger King,” she said. “It’s the felony they can’t get past. I only get a job during tax season.”

With next to no work and her son at school, England has too much time to ruminate. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but recently stopped taking antidepressants and seeing her therapist.

She barely sleeps, she said. England anguishes over the belief that the photos from Abu Ghraib could have caused American casualties.

“That’s something that falls on my head,” she said. “I think about it all the time — indirect deaths that were my fault. Losing people on our side because of me coming out on a picture.”

Images on television and sounds in the streets trigger memories of her time in Iraq — and in prison.

“Somebody dropped something off the [store] shelf and I freaked out,” she said. “It was two aisles down. They dropped something on the floor and made a big bang and I was like, ‘Ah!’ ”

England is paranoid. She believes people follow her at the grocery store, and she’s fearful someone will exact revenge. She’s tried to disguise herself and considered changing her name.

“You wonder why I’m always looking over my shoulder,” she said. “It could be 20 years down the road. People wait. They have patience.”

There are few things that give her respite. Legally barred from carrying a weapon, she can no longer join her father on hunts for squirrel, deer and turkey like she did before the war.

Now, England’s life centers around raising son Carter.

“I thought maybe I would meet some guy and then get married and he’ll adopt him and then he’ll be his daddy,” England said. “It’s gone on eight years now since I left Iraq, since I’ve really been out with a guy.”

She knows her life in Fort Ashby is a compromise — it’s very close to the one she tried to leave behind when she enrolled in the Army. Still, England said her role in the Abu Ghraib disaster has been redeemed because it gave her a son.

“If I say I regret getting with Graner then I say that I regret Carter. And I don’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t give up Carter for anything. And if going through that whole ordeal is what was supposed to happen to me to have Carter then that’s how some things are.”