Ex-US Marine Asks Iraqis for Forgiveness
Source: http://www.iraqirabita.org/english/inde ... cle&id=466
A former US Marine has urged the Iraqi people and Muslims around the globe to forgive the US "war crimes" in Iraq, and said that the Bush administration has sunk deeper into the Iraqi quagmire and will lose the war at the end of the day.
"I ask the Iraqis and Muslims to forgive US practices in Iraq, especially during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan," Jimmy Massey told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, October 12.
Massey, who is currently on a visit to Paris to mark the publishing of his first book " Kill! Kill! Kill!", said there is widespread discontent in the United States at the policies of the Bush
Massey's book was published by a French publishing house after it had been apparently rejected by American publishers.
Massey, who left Iraq in May 2003, wrote the book after being discharged from the Marines with a diagnosed case of post-trauma stress syndrome.
"I spent long hours speechless and looking at the wall, seeing nothing but only images of the killed Iraqis," he said.
On his book, he said "It's been a healing experience. It's allowed me to close a lot of chapters and answer a lot of questions."
In December of last year, Massey along with his paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman applied for political asylum in Canada in protest at the "atrocities" committed by the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In graphic testimonies to a Canadian tribunal, the former Marine Sergeant and Hinzman have argued that they could not tolerate killing innocent civilians in Iraq.
"War Crimes"
The US forces in Iraq are committing "war crimes" against the innocent Iraqi people, said the ex-Marine.
He said he himself had Iraqi blood on his hands, when he killed innocent Iraqis at the start of the US invasion of the Arab country.
He regretted that the victims were not soldiers, but unarmed and posed no threat to the US forces.
Citing a horrific incident against Iraqi civilians at the time, Massey said that he gunned down a number of Iraqi demonstrators during a protest in Baghdad's neighborhood of Al-Rashid in April of 2003, the month when US tanks rolled into Baghdad streets in a heartbreaking scene for the Arabs and Muslims.
The demonstrators were civilian people, however, a US commander ordered his unit soldiers to open fire at the crowd, killing a number of protesters in cold blood.
He said some of the victims were shot directly in the head, citing a CIA memo that brainwashed servicemen in Iraq into thinking that al Iraqis were potential terrorists.
In his book, Massey writes that at one point he told an officer that the US military campaign "resembles a genocide" and that "our only objective in Iraq is petrol and profits."
British medical weekly, Lancet, said last year that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians -- half of whom women and children -- have lost their lives since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Late last year, the International Committee for Red Cross (ICRC), the guardian of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in warfare, lambasted "utter contempt" for humanity in US-occupied Iraq.
The international group also described the US abuses against detainees as "war crimes."
Bush Should Leave
Massey foresaw a "black scenario" facing the US forces in Iraq.
He admired the resolve displayed by the Iraqi resistance fighters, who fight US soldiers.
He said the unabated Iraqi resistance doomed the US mission in Iraq to failure.
Massey reserved an "open message" to US President George W. Bush.
"I call on you (Bush) to leave as you are bring disgrace to the American people and sadness to mothers who lose their sons in Iraq."
Late September, tens of thousands of American demonstrators took to the streets in several major cities to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq and demand the withdrawal of American troops of whom at least 2,000 soldiers were killed since March 2003.
A congressionally mandated panel concluded in September that Bush is seen in the Arab world as a greater threat than Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
A 2004 pentagon report said the US administration was alienating Muslims worldwide and losing the "the war of ideas" because of adopting faulty policies and what is perceived as "self-serving hypocrisy".
Bush has recently appointed Karen Hughes as Undersecretary of State for Diplomacy to shine up America’s image in the Arab world, which is described by pundits as mission impossible.
