Compelling Evidence of American Chemical Weapon Use in Fallujah

Shadowy prisons. Torture. Chemical weapons. Massacres. Iraq under Saddam Hussein? Yeah, and America right now.

Evil isn’t a word I use very often. It’s misused all the time as a favourite adjective of preachers and politicians. But there’s times when its presence is unmistakeable. It carries with it a stink of rot, of bodies decaying in cellars, of maggots and filth. It shrouds itself with secrecy. Death and pain are its fruit.

It permeates the government and military of the United States.

I don’t spend much time writing about America these days. I prefer writing about my own country. It’s not like there’s a shortage of people with opinions about the US, and lots – thousands, maybe tens of thousands – already have blogs. Why waste the words?

So in September when I came across the photographs of the burned, mutilated and shattered Iraqis that American soldiers trade for online porn, complete with captions like “cooked Iraqi”, I said nothing here.

Five days ago, when I read in the Washington Post that the US has a secret network of prisons called “black sites” run by the CIA which hold terror suspects, I didn’t comment, even though it’s outrageous. These covert facilities are thought to be in Eastern Europe. Those who are held inside are utterly isolated from the outside world, have no rights and see and speak with no one who is not CIA.

What death, what pain, shrouds itself in secrecy in these dirty concrete holes left by the Soviets? “The Senate has passed legislation banning torture, but the Bush administration is seeking an exemption for the CIA spy agency”, reports the BBC today. That should give us a good idea.

Consider the things that happen in the places we know about. Manadel al-Jamadi died in Abu Ghraib while being interrogated by Mark Swanner, a CIA officer: “His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated.” According to the New Yorker, he still works for the CIA. The CIA supervisor that oversaw the Afghan prisoner who froze to death in his cell in 2002, after being stripped to death and chained to the floor, was later promoted.

I didn’t write about it. The torture, the sadism, the bizarre sexual abuse, they’re not news any more. Par for the course when you’re talking about the US of A. Like the natural disasters and famines of the developing world, we feel momentary outrage or pity, then move on.

But what I saw tonight still has the power to shock. Maybe it’s the monumental hypocrisy of the American military using chemical weapons in a war started because they claimed Iraq had them. Maybe it’s the open acknowledgment by an American veteran of the war in Iraq about their use, and his matter-of-fact acknowledgment that yes, he’s killed Iraqi civilians. Maybe it’s the vivid images of the victims themselves.

WATCH all of that put together in one startling expose. (Warning: contains graphic and disturbing footage.)

If you would prefer not to see it, you can read a summary of its contents here.