Collective punishment - learning from the Israelis

And they expect to win the hearts of the occupied people of Iraq!
The occupation army has taken another leaf out of the zionist’s tactics - uproot trees and destroy farmland to punish civilians. What next uncle Sam?

“US Soldiers Bulldoze Farmers’ Crops
Americans accused of brutal ‘punishment’ tactics against villagers

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers …

Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.

What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.

The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: “We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn’t tell us.”

Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: “It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth.” “

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1012-01.htm

Sad news. The U.S. is trying to make another Hamas; only this time in Iraq. With operations like these, it is only a matter of time.

It's sad to see the American's using the tactics of the Israeli war criminals against the Iraqi people, who in turn have been using Nazi-style tactics against the brave Palestinian people.