Yankee Go Home--stop killing women, crippled, and children.

Further into the Iraqi quagmire: US intensifies repression

By James Cogan
20 August 2005

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To use the term “democracy” in relation to the situation in Iraq makes a mockery of the word. The reality of life for the Iraqi masses is a social and economic catastrophe, alongside ever-more brutal colonial rule at the hands of the American military and its local Iraqi security forces. As tensions increase, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are presiding over a stepped-up campaign of repression against the population.

On Thursday, hundreds of people demonstrated against the US occupation through the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Amiriya, carrying the coffins of three more men gunned down in their house during an American raid and search.

Khalil Hussein, a middle-aged man whose wounds in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s had left him crippled and confined to a wheelchair, was shot dead in his bathroom and left lying on the floor. His two brothers, Khalid and Jamal, were also killed. His sister-in-law was wounded in the arm and foot.

A US military statement labelled them a “kidnapping cell” and “terrorists”. Their family and friends have accused American troops of indiscriminate killings. Khalil Hussein’s “crime” may well have been being unable to stand up when ordered to by American troops. A friend of the brothers told Reuters: “They call everybody ‘terrorists’ but they just commit terrorist acts whenever they want.”

Every week in Iraq, hundreds of people are killed, wounded, detained or intimidated during searches or at roadblocks. The US military is enforcing a reign of terror, particularly in Baghdad and the predominantly Sunni Arab regions where support is greatest for the anti-occupation resistance organisations.

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