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Human rights abuses by the American forces in Iraq

April 18, 2014 at 12:24 pm

The United Nations and the United States of America are calling for an investigation into human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government and LTTE. Sadly, one of the regular responses by the Sri Lankan government to the call for accountability is the fact that the UN has never hauled up the US for the now, well documented accusations, of human rights abuses in Iraq, including the horrific torture of literally thousands of detainees. I am not suggesting for one minute that two wrongs make a right or that Sri Lanka should not be held accountable. However, the call by the Sri Lankan government that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones is a valid one.


Following the ‘successful defeat’ of Saddam Hussein’s forces the Americans then had to face an unexpected foe. The Sunnis were rising up in opposition to the ‘democracy’ that the occupation forces were attempted to impose. The American’s found a convenient ally in the form of the Shia that had been brutally oppressed by Saddam. This harassment included chemical weapon attacks which were condemned internationally. However, it is fully documented that the Americans used white phosphorus and napalm on the Iraqi civilians. One of their explanations was that the weapon they were using was not, in fact, napalm but some other weapon. It was later revealed that it was indeed napalm, they had just changed the name.

The Shia were formed into police militias, trained and armed by the American and set lose on the Sunni population in order to quell them. No one knows the exact number of illegal detention cells that were set up by the Shia militia but they were created with the full knowledge of the Americans. Thousands of people were horrendously tortured and one of those methods used was by hanging the victim upside down and using an electric drill on several parts of his body. Once again, this was done with the full knowledge of the Americans, one of them being General David Howell Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq at that time.

Allow me to repeat that the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE must be held accountable to the UN and the international community for crimes against humanity and the human rights abuses committed. However, for the international community not to demand accountability from the United States of America is hypocrisy in the extreme.

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