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15 June 2010
by Admin

America on Human Rights (3)

But here we have nother example illustrating how Iran fails to uphold all of its international commitments and to account honestly for its human rights record:

Shining light on what our government and military do is so critical precisely because it forces people to see what is really being done and prevents myth and propaganda from distorting those realities.  That's why the administration fights so hard to keep torture photos suppressed, why the military fought so hard here to keep this video concealed (and why they did the same with regard to the Afghan massacre), and why whistle-blowers, real journalists, and sites like WikiLeaks are the declared enemy of the government.  The discussions many people are having today -- about the brutal reality of what the U.S. does when it engages in war, invasions and occupation -- is exactly the discussion which they most want to avoid.

让公众了解我们的政府和军队的所作所为是我们正视现实的关键，而这也正是政府最想避免的事，这就是为什么他们竭力阻挠伊拉克屠杀的录像被公之于众，为什么竭力阻挠阿富汗屠杀的真相为世人所知，为什么宣布举报者、良心未泯的记者以及维基揭露网为政府的敌人。因为他们害怕一件事，那就是引发一场关于他们发动战争侵占别国的举世大讨论。

But there's a serious danger when incidents like this Iraq slaughter are exposed in a piecemeal and unusual fashion:  namely, the tendency to talk about it as though it is an aberration.  It isn't.  It's the opposite:  it's par for the course, standard operating procedure, what we do in wars, invasions, and occupation.  The only thing that's rare about the Apache helicopter killings is that we know about it and are seeing what happened on video.  And we're seeing it on video not because it's rare, but because it just so happened (a) to result in the deaths of two Reuters employees, and thus received more attention than the thousands of other similar incidents where nameless Iraqi civilians are killed, and (b) to end up in the hands of WikiLeaks, which then published it.  But what is shown is completely common.  That includes not only the initial killing of a group of men, the vast majority of whom are clearly unarmed, but also the plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men (with their children) carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety -- as though there's something nefarious about human beings in an urban area trying to take an unarmed, wounded photographer to a hospital.

现在有关伊拉克的屠杀真相被一点点地泄露出来了。但这种挤牙膏式的泄露也有一个问题，这就是给人一个错觉似乎在伊拉克的屠杀是一种偶然现象。事实正相反。这类种族血洗式的杀戮正是所有外族侵略战争的特点。唯一偶然的是阿怕奇直升机追杀平民的一幕恰巧被录了下来，被杀的人中又恰巧有两名英国路透社记者，录像又恰巧被维基揭露网所得并昭彰于世。试想有这么多巧合凑在一起需要多么大的概率，由此可以反推美军在伊拉克的种族杀戮应该是多么的普遍。犹其令人发指的是，美国直升机杀完平民后又继续追杀抢救伤员的人群，美国军人对人权的漠视和践踏实在已到了丧心病狂的地步。

A major reason there are hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, is because this is what we do.  This is why so many of those civilians are dead.  What one sees on that video is how we conduct our wars.  That's why it's repulsive to watch people -- including some "liberals" -- attack WikiLeaks for slandering The Troops, or complain that objections to these actions unfairly disparage the military because "our guys are the good guys" and they act differently "99.99999999% of the time。Just as was true of the deceitful attempt to depict the Abu Ghraib abusers as rogue "bad apples" once their conduct was exposed with photographs (when the reality was they were acting in complete consistency with authorized government policy), the claim that what was shown on that video is some sort of outrageous departure from U.S. policy is demonstrably false

为什么在伊拉克战争中会有数十万伊拉克平民死于非命？为什么在阿福汗战争会中有成千上百阿富汗平民命丧黄泉？这都是因为我们的军队。因为美国军队一贯的在别国领土上滥杀无辜。当那些美国人攻击维基揭露网污蔑美国军人，声称百分之九十九点九九九九九九九九的的美国大兵是好人时，我都要吐了。这和他们当时对阿布监狱照片事件的反应如出一辙。当时他们也声称虐俘的是少数混在军队里的坏分子，而后来我们知道这些“坏分子”原来竟是政府政策的最忠实执行者。

As the video demonstrates, the soldiers in the Apache did not take a single step -- including killing those unarmed men who tried to rescue the wounded -- without first receiving formal permission from their superiors.  Beyond that, the Pentagon yesterday -- once the video was released -- suddenly embraced the wisdom of transparency by posting online the reports of the so-called "investigations" it undertook into this incident (as a result of pressure from Reuters).   Those formal investigations not only found that every action taken by those soldiers was completely justified -- including the firing on the unarmed civilian rescuers -- but also found that there's no need for any remedial steps to be taken to prevent future re-occurence. What we see on that video is what the U.S. does on a constant and regular basis in these countries, and it's what we've been doing for years.  It's obviously consistent with our policies and practices for how we fight in these countries, which is exactly what those investigative reports concluded.

正如在录像中显示的，直升机上的士兵并非异想天开擅自行动。他们是在接受了上级的指令后才去屠杀平民的，包括追杀伤员。近日五角大楼鉴于牺牲了两名记者的英国路透社的压力发布了所谓的调查报告。调查的结论是美国士兵杀平民有理，包括追杀救人的人，美国军队不会改变既定的杀平民政策，因为调查发现直升机上士兵的行动并不出格，而是与美国军队一贯的政策和实践一致的。

All of this is usually kept from us. We stay blissfully insulated from it, so that in those rare instances when we're graphically exposed to it, we can tell ourselves that it's all very unusual and rare.  That's how we collectively dismissed the Abu Ghraib photos, and it's why the Obama administration took such extraordinary steps to suppress all the rest of the torture photos:  because further disclosure would have revealed that behavior to be standard and common, not at all unusual or extraordinary.

但是我们都被蒙在了鼓里，以致当我们看到那些图像时，我们想当然的认为这些都是些偶然的越轨行为。这也是奥巴马政府用尽手段阻止更多的虐俘照片在媒体上发表的原因 – 那些照片会让公众醒悟到虐俘并非异常，而恰恰是一种常态。

The full story narated by Glenn Greenwald can be read from the following link:

salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/06/iraq

References:

Military Fought Hard to Keep Killing Video Concealed:
reuters.com/article/idUSL05399965

The Afghan Massacre:
salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
2010/04/05/afghanistan/index.html

The Enemy of the Government:
salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks

Attack on WikiLeaks:
oliverwillis.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder-video/

U.S. Military Investigation on the Shooting incident:
www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM Regulation CCR 25210/Death of Reuters Journalists/6--2nd Brigade Combat Team 15-6 Investigation.pdf

Obama Administration Suppress the Torture Photos:
salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/01/photos

But again we apologize for providing a wrong example as this human rights abuse incident also occurred in the United States.

But here we have more examples, more ...

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