It is precisely because Memorial Day brings home to us the uniqueness and value of every life that one group of war dead will be conspicuous by their absence from all our commemorations: and that is the many thousands of Iraqis we have killed since March 2003. Because who really wants to be reminded that at least 20,000 and perhaps as many as 100,000 Iraqis - people just like us - are dead today because of a war we should never have started?
Their names will never be engraved on the Mall, and their faces will never warrant a spread in the Washington Post, but I will commemorate here 100 or so of those Iraqis who, thanks to us, made the "ultimate sacrifice" whether they wished it or not.
1. ZAIDOUN FADEL HASSOUN, 19
Zaidoun Hassoun, a twelfth-grader about to graduate high school, drowned after being thrown into the River Tigris by a U.S. Army patrol in Samarra, in January 2004.
FORT HOOD, Texas -- An Iraqi civilian testified yesterday that he and his cousin were forced at gunpoint into the murky Tigris River and that US soldiers laughed while the two struggled against the current. Marwan Fadel Hassoun said he struggled to shore and tried to save his 19-year-old cousin by grabbing his hand, but the powerful waters swept Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun to his death. ''He was calling my name, said 'Help me! Help me!' " Marwan Hassoun testified through an interpreter on the second day of the military trial for Army Sergeant First Class Tracy Perkins, 33. (Source)
Sergeant Perkins explained at his court martial that he had ordered the men thrown into the river because "I didn't want them to think we were soft or weak." He was sentenced to 6 months in prison.
Manslaughter charges against Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville, who authorized Sergeant Perkins' order to throw the Hassoun cousins into the Tigris, were dropped in a plea bargain. He was sentenced instead to 45 days imprisonment for having a third Iraqi thrown into the Tigris, this time at Balad, in December 2003. Saville had reportedly made a bet with another platoon about who would do such a thing first. He assured his court martial that he had learned from his mistakes, and been "forgiven by God".
2. FIFTEEN MEMBERS OF THE AL-KHAFAJI FAMILY
The al-Khafaji family was fleeing the fighting in Haidariya on 31 March 2003, when their pickup truck was destroyed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Razek Al-Kazem Al-Khafaji lost his six children, his wife, his mother, his father, three brothers and three sisters-in-law.
Photo: Razek Al-Kazem Al-Khafaji grieves for three of his children. (By Karim Sahib for AFP; via The Jordan Times, 2 Apr 03)
3. HUSSEIN and KAMILA HASSAN, ages not known
Hussein Hassan, his wife Kamila, and six of their nine children were riding in their car when it came under fire from a U.S. Army patrol in Tal Afar on 18 January 2005. Hussein and Kamila were killed instantly. Their 12-year old son, Rakan, was hit in the stomach by a bullet that exited through his spine, damaging vertebrae and leaving him unable to walk.
Photo: An Iraqi girl screams after her parents were killed when American soldiers fired on their car when it failed to stop; Tal Afar, Iraq, 18 January 2005. (By Chris Hondros/Getty Images).
See the rest here.
-The Oklahoma Hippy
Good. I'm glad.
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