Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Non ci dimentichiamo dei Brits...

"'The Army had not a word of compassion for the dead man, nor for his
orphaned sons'" by ROBERT FISK
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=594560
http://207.44.245.159/article7521.htm
19 December 2004, The Independent
It was the insouciance, the absolute indifference of the British
military press office in Basra that shocked me.
Here I had documents--one of them signed by a British officer--stating
that Baha Mousa had died in British custody, another that Mousa's
colleague had been "assaulted" when he too was a prisoner and suffered
"acute renal failure", the statement of his father that the British
army waited three days before admitting to the family that he was
dead--and the British spokesman said he couldn't help.
Tony Blair was about to arrive in Basra. Everyone was busy. Why didn't
I call the Ministry of Defence in London? There were yawns. Not a word
of compassion about the dead man, whose wife had just died of cancer,
not even a word for his small and now orphaned sons.
This was at almost the same moment that the British and Americans were
told by the International Red Cross of the US military's brutality at
Abu Ghraib--and did nothing about it. When British and American
soldiers died, we named them, identified them, mourned them. When
Iraqis died, we simply didn't care.
I will always remember the way in which Baha Mousa's brother Alaa told
me how a British sergeant came to their home and identified himself as
"Jay": "He sat on our sofa and said, 'I have come to tell you about
the death of your brother Baha.' There was screaming and shouting and
crying."
Baha Mousa had been brutally beaten while hooded and tied up--none of
the other prisoners suffering with him were ever charged with any
crime--by soldiers who gave them the names of footballers. His father
was a police colonel and had seen his son before his arrest at a local
hotel. He even acquired a note from the arresting officer that Baha
would be looked after. His name--typically--was meaningless: it was
signed "Second Lieutenant Mike".
Col Mousa was in tears. "What can I do?" he had asked me, and I just
said to him: the law, get a lawyer, contact Amnesty, take it to
London. I never saw him again, but his family's case shows that if the
British army and the Government are indifferent to the suffering of
Iraqis--especially when "our" side causes that suffering--there are
honest men and true ready to right such wrongs. But not enough of
them. The two senior High Court judges who ordered the MoD to hold an
independent inquiry into Baha Mousa's brutal death will not be able to
cure the malaise of almost reckless apathy in the face of such
injustice which contaminates so many armies, including our own.
Enquiring into British army brutality in Northern Ireland, I was met
with the same weary, casual air by a previous generation of press
officers and underlings.
Rereading my notebooks of post-invasion Iraq, I find they are filled
with stories of other Baha Mousas: an old man from Fallujah who died
of ill-treatment and ended up on a slab at Abu Ghraib, of cruel
beatings in the same prison, of almost countless innocent Iraqis shot
down by trigger-happy American--and British--soldiers.
I know the old argument: Saddam was worse. But must we always compare
ourselves to this tyrant when we want to promote our dubious
innocence? And must the officers of these occupation armies in Iraq
always become indignant at the mere suggestion that their troops have
killed the innocent when they must know that they have?
Imagine if Iraqi occupation forces beat up and killed a 26-year-old
British hotel worker in Manchester and then showed indifference
towards his death.  Or tried to palm the family off with a quick cash
payment to absolve themselves of liability--which is what the British
tried to do.
It's easy to suggest an answer to all this: the setting up of a
special system of justice in Iraq to deal with all such cases,
immediately and in public. But it wouldn't work. Even the Royal
Military Police dragged their feet over Baha Mousa's death. And
anyway, it's now far too late to right all the wrongs we have done in
Iraq.
Just don't ask why "they" hate us.
K
-- 
L'aspetto dello scarafaggio è quello di un piccolo mostro dal colore fra.. 
lo sterco di cane e quell del cavallo. Gregor Samsa si considera parassita e 
vergogna della famiglia; perciò non si meraviglia affatto, quando, 
svegliandosi di mattina, si vede trasformato in un enorme scarafaggio. 
(Dedicato al bagarozzo di questo NG) 

 19 December 2004, The Independent
MEGACUT
Ah, ams, ma mi stuphisco. Fisk non era strettamente off limits in questo 
NG? Non e' quel pazzo che ha addebitato la strage di 800 donne e bambini 
a Sharon, pur potendo controllare di persona?
La mia parte britannica si vergogna, e non dubitava di doverlo fare 
prima o poi: era il risultato prevedibile  di una guerra per fatta per 
motivi inconfessabili, in questo addirittura peggio della Guerra di 
Algeria. 
Guerra razzista.
Am.

"amalric" <amalric...@REMOVEMEaliceposta.it> wrote in message 
news:amalricTOGLIMI-524...@twister2.tin.it...

E' vero che ogni popolo ha (tranne qualche eccezione dove il governo 
s'impianta forzatamente o con brogli elettorali) il governo che si merita. 
Ma e' anche vero che identificare un intero popolo al proprio governo e' 
errato. Ho vissuto 9 anni in the UK e quindi penso di conoscere bene il 
popolo britannico. Credimi, non c'e' nulla da vergognarsi. Secondo me se si 
applicasse ai vari Bush, Berlusconi, Blair, Sharon (ma la lista e' lunga) 
una fustigazione su deretano per ogni cazzata che dicono e fanno, avremmo 
dei popoli magnifici, con tutti i pregi e difetti.
K
-- 
mother should i trust the government -- pink floyd 

 dei popoli magnifici, con tutti i pregi e difetti.
Non ne sono cosi' sicuro. Pensa alla guerra sporca contro l'Ira. I 
popoli non sono al rifugio dalle ambiguita' morali dei loro dirigenti.
Alcune unita' sono le stesse mandate in Irak.
Am.

"amalric" <amalric...@REMOVEMEaliceposta.it> wrote in message 
news:amalricTOGLIMI-961...@twister2.tin.it...

Mi sa che dobbiamo metterci daccordo su cosa intendiamo per 'popolo'.
Per me e' la gente comune. Sto solo cercando di non generalizzare. Se dico 
che gli yankees o gli israeliani sono un manipolo di assassini mi riferisco 
al governo ed ai loro sostenitori, ben aware che ci sono molti altri che 
sono contrari a questo. Se dico che gli italiani sono un popolo di coglioni, 
mi riferisco al governo berlusconi ed ai suoi sostenitori che si sono fatti 
infinocchiare...
K
-- 
"An army that kills so many children is an army with no restraints, an army
that has lost its moral code." - Gideon Levy