Sanitizing the Killing Fields of Mosul

The smell of rotting corpses pervades the city. Over 40,000 civilians were ruthlessly massacred, mostly by US terror-bombing – discussed in a previous article.

The city resembles a moonscape, few signs of life visible anywhere. Civilians able to get out are displaced refugees, largely on their own to survive – their homes, possessions and futures destroyed.

Tens of thousands of others are buried under rubble. Mosul is an open-air graveyard, one of many examples of US viciousness, what imperialism is all about – a rage for wealth, power and dominance no matter the human cost.

Contrast a sanitized NYT report with a candid one by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi after visiting the city and witnessing the devastation firsthand.

The Times: Iraqi “Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi…congratulat(ed) (the nation’s) armed forces for wresting the city from the Islamic State (ISIS).”

The Times admitted months of battle left the city in ruins, killing thousands, displacing around a million of its residents.

Its report stressed triumph over genocidal mass slaughter and destruction. It said nothing about indiscriminate US terror-bombing, nothing about Washington’s support for ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups.

It was silent about Ali Arkady’s firsthand reporting and photographic evidence of torture, abuse and cold-blooded murder of Iraqi military captives, civilians suspected of ISIS ties.

Embedded in an elite Iraqi interior ministry emergency response division, Arkady witnessed brutal interrogations to obtain forced confessions from suspected ISIS captives or sympathizers.

He later fled the country, taking his photographic and video evidence with him, exposing the brutality of regime practices – installed by Washington to serve its interests.

The Times quoted Abadi saying he came to Mosul “to announce its liberation and congratulate the armed forces and Iraqi people on this victory.”

Mosul was raped and destroyed, not liberated, the horror ongoing for months largely ignored by Western media, devastation and human suffering mostly suppressed – including horrific crimes of war and against humanity committed by US and Iraqi forces.

Marandi explained what The Times and other media scoundrels failed to report. Interviewed by RT International, he said “(t)he city is almost empty.”

“The devastation across the city, and it’s the second-most important city in Iraq, is extraordinary.”

“Those we spoke to were all seemed very pleased for the city to have been retaken, but they all said the American airstrikes were very devastating and very hurtful to ordinary people, and many civilians were killed.”

Marandi discussed Western media coverage of Aleppo last year and Mosul, saying:

“We also visited Aleppo after the liberation as well, and what was very interesting, or very unfortunate, was the devastation of East Aleppo, which was occupied by al-Qaeda in Syria, was very similar to the devastation we saw in West Mosul.”

“The bombing by the Americans destroyed so much of the west side of the city, yet the Western media said almost nothing about it.”

During the aerial and ground campaign to liberate Aleppo from US-supported al-Nusra terrorists, Russian and Syrian forces made extraordinary efforts to avoid or minimize civilian casualties – polar opposite how US and Iraqi forces operated in Mosul.

Western media wrongfully claimed Russian and Syrian forces indiscriminately targeted civilian areas. They ignored US terror-bombing of Mosul. The double standard needs no further elaboration.

Moscow established humanitarian corridors for Aleppo residents to leave the city. It provided vital humanitarian aid. America, other Western nations and the UN supplied nothing.

Marandi: “Iraqis have been saying all this devastation since Saddam Hussein (was toppled) and up to now, the United States is to blame more than anyone else because they supported” him for many years.

America “create(d) ISIS, alongside the Saudis and unfortunately the Turkish government and the Qataris.”

“They funded the extremist groups as we know from the defense agency documents of 2012, and also the WikiLeaks documents which show that Hillary Clinton knew that in 2014, the Saudis and the Qataris were helping ISIS.”

“So the Iraqi people are very much aware of what’s going on, and they believe for over forty years of devastation, the United States more than anyone is to blame, alongside its regional allies.”

America’s imperial ruthlessness bears full responsibility for the rape and destruction of Iraq, Syria, and many other countries.

Its diabolical agenda is humanity’s greatest threat.

Over 40,000 Civilians Massacred in Battle for Mosul

[image: AP Photo/Felipe Dana]In all US wars of aggression, human lives don’t matter – the safety and welfare of civilians entirely ignored.

Claims otherwise are bald-faced lies. A duplicitous Pentagon statement said “(w)e set the highest standards for protecting civilians.”

“(O)ur dedication, diligence, and discipline in prosecuting our combat operations while protecting civilians, is without precedent in recorded history of warfare.”

Cold, hard, indisputable facts on the ground reveal otherwise. Millions of casualties in all US wars of aggression are clear evidence of its imperial brutality.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein condemned what he called the “massive loss of civilian lives in Mosul.” The appalling body count mounted daily throughout months of battle.

According to intelligence reported by The (London) Independent, over 40,000 civilians were massacred during months of fighting in Mosul – mostly from indiscriminate US terror-bombing.

The Independent: “(D)evastation in the city is huge: the closer one gets to the fighting in the centre, the greater the signs of destruction from air strikes.”

“Wherever Isis made a stand, Iraqi forces called in the US-led coalition to use its massive firepower to turn whole blocks into heaps of rubble and smashed masonry.”

“(M)any districts are deserted and only passable because bulldozers have cut a path through the debris.”

Likely tens of thousands of corpses remain buried under rubble, their identity never to be known. Everyone in Mosul lost a relative or friend. Sporadic fighting continues.

Former senior Iraqi foreign minister, later finance minister Hoshyar Zebari said countless numbers of bodies “are still buried under the rubble. The level of human suffering is immense.”

“Kurdish intelligence believes that over 40,000 civilians have been killed as a result of massive firepower used against them” – mainly indiscriminate US terror-bombing.

The US-installed puppet regime in Baghdad “is indifferent to what has happened,” he stressed, adding “the soul of Mosul has gone and its iconic buildings are destroyed.”

“(A)n unimaginable level of human suffering (occurred) with more than one million people displaced.”

ISIS wasn’t defeated in Mosul. Washington redeployed most of its fighters to Syria. Along with other terrorist groups, they’re used as imperial foot soldiers in both countries and elsewhere.

The scourge they represent remains. Endless US wars continue, defenseless civilians paying the greatest price.

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Civilians Harmed Most in US War Theaters

[image: Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images]Massacring civilians in US war theaters, deceptively called “collateral damage,” is perhaps the last refuge of ruthless imperial warmaking.

Civilians are harmed most in all wars, notably America’s – millions of lives lost post-9/11 alone, high crimes ignored in the mainstream.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim once said, “(t)he immorality of war depends entirely on the leaders who willed it.”

In America, it’s bipartisan complicity – top administration and Pentagon officials, along with Congress funding lawless aggression.

In his opening Nuremberg address, Justice Robert Jackson denounced the “men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”

He called them “men of station and rank (who don’t) soil (their) hands with blood.” They use “lesser folk” to do their dirty work, committing crimes of war and against humanity to enhance their status and privilege – the human toll of no consequence.

International, constitutional and US statute laws are flagrantly violated in all American wars – of choice, not in self-defense post-WW II, naked aggression each time waged.

Under the 1907 Hague Regulations, Fourth Geneva, Geneva’s Common Article III, and other international laws, civilians are protected persons.

So is civilian property and other nonmilitary-related sites. Attacking them is prohibited. War crimes are clearly defined. Principles of distinction and proportionality apply as follows:

Distinction refers to distinguishing between combatants and military targets v. civilians and non-military ones. Attacking latter ones are war crimes except when civilians take direct part in hostilities.

Proportionality prohibits disproportionate, indiscriminate force, likely to cause damage or loss of lives.

Precautions must be taken to avoid and minimize incidental loss of civilian lives, injuries, and damage to non-military sites.

Under Fourth Geneva, noncombatants must be given “effective advance warning” and “neutralized zones” to be as protected as possible.

In all its war theaters, America flagrantly violates core laws on what’s prohibited in combat – committing naked aggression and high crimes against peace in all its conflicts.

Activist Vanessa Beeley spent much time in Syria, witnessing firsthand the horrors of Washington’s war, noting “the hypocrisy” in plain sight “from the US(-led) coalition.”

Terror-bombing Raqqa alone caused a “staggering loss of civilian life,” according to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syria war.

It remains ongoing, likely the worst to come, including use of white phosphorous able to burn flesh to the bone on contact, cluster bombs, depleted uranium and other banned weapons.

Beeley: “What we are seeing in Raqqa is no attempt to protect civilians” – the same horrors ongoing for months in and around Mosul, Iraq, thousands of civilians massacred in cold blood, by terror-bombing and US-supported ISIS terrorists.

America wages wars for conquest, dominance and profit. Claiming humanitarian intervention and democracy building justification are despicable Big Lies. Supported by media scoundrels compounds them.

US-led terror-bombing in all its war theaters flagrantly violates core rule of law principles.

Asked if a greater bloodbath in Raqqa than already is likely, Beeley explained it’s hard to know “because it is very hard to determine exactly how many civilians” remain in the city. So many were displaced by warfare.

The horror of what’s ongoing in all US war theaters is virtually unreported in the West.

High crimes are suppressed. Most Americans know nothing about the dark side of US imperial aggression – endlessly waged for power and profits, no other reasons.