Now we know why.
Guardian website on the 'war logs'
Wikileaks website on the 'war logs'
Includes stories on "How the US ignored Torture", a secret tally of Iraqi civilian deaths (something about which the Pentagon's spokespersons have always denied existence), "No Further Action" by US military to claims of abuse, the "Grim Toll at the Checkpoints", "Men Who Tried to Surrender Killed", "How Friendly Fire Became Routine", and a map of every death in Iraq.
In other words, a lot of stuff that the generals at the Pentagon have been trying to hide during this war.
Of course, the people who committed this act of freedom in letting the world see this info are under attack. Wikileaks is under attack. Its financial sources are under attack. Its founder had a strange on again off again rape charge suddenly filed against him. And just before the release of this information, Wikileaks was under attack by 'very skilled' hackers.
Who is defending freedom?
Freedom is about power, and who controls it. In a free society, the power resides with the people. Of course, in order for that to work, the people need information. For instance, a free society can not make an informed decision on whether to continue a war when it does not know the costs of the war. According to these US military documents, 66,000 civilian deaths were counted by the US military.
For what? To rid Iraq of WMD's it didn't have? The US has killed 66,000 people in a war that the US did not need to fight to defend itself. The people of the US were lied to in the beginning about the reason for this war when the government and the media spun their lies about WMDs. And now, we know that the government has been covering up 66,000 civilian deaths, plus many other tales of abuse.
When the government lies to the people, when the government hides facts from the people, then the government is usurping the power that rightly belongs to the people. That's a government and a military that are taking power from the people into their own hands by deciding what it is the people know.
When you get a chance to know what the government doesn't want you to know, you should go find out. Follow the link above to the Guardian articles. Or, go visit Wikileaks. Its your duty as a free citizen to know what your government doesn't want you to know. There's probably no act that's more American than that.
Oh, and just in case you think this is all stuff from the Bush years .....
As recently as December the Americans were passed a video apparently showing Iraqi army officers executing a prisoner in Tal Afar, northern Iraq. The log states: "The footage shows approximately 12 Iraqi army soldiers. Ten IA soldiers were talking to one another while two soldiers held the detainee. The detainee had his hands bound … The footage shows the IA soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him and shooting him."
The report named at least one perpetrator and was passed to coalition forces. But the logs reveal that the coalition has a formal policy of ignoring such allegations. They record "no investigation is necessary" and simply pass reports to the same Iraqi units implicated in the violence. By contrast all allegations involving coalition forces are subject to formal inquiries. Some cases of alleged abuse by UK and US troops are also detailed in the logs.
That's on Obama's watch. SOP of US military under Obama to ignore complaints of abuse and torture if they occurred under our puppet governments military and police units.
If we weren't sure of whether Obama has committed impeachable offenses, now we know. A system of command that routinely ignores reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity is a war crime. And the highest of leaders are held responsible for such a crime. Its their job to make sure that this doesn't happen.
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