Earlier this week, President George W. Bush gave a speech in which he warned that if the American military occupation of Iraq ended, then Iraq would suffer its own version of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The Killing Fields were places where large numbers of people were taken to be executed, in shallow graves or just left to rot on the ground.
What President Bush and his pro-war supporters do not understand is that Iraqis are already suffering from the kind of mass executions that terrorized the Cambodians in the 1970s. All over Iraq, huge numbers of people have been taken away and executed. Their bodies are often found dumped in city streets when people wake up in the morning. Still, these mass executions and dumpings occurred in urban environments, so they couldn’t be called “killing fields”.
Yesterday, however, a killing field of the very sort that George W. Bush warned of was found in Iraq, south of Baghdad. There, outside the city, people were executed and their bodies were dumped in a crater. Piles of skulls and rotting human flesh mixed up with bloody clothing were frequented by wild dogs, who are suspected of feeding on the remains of the victims.
It’s too late to warn that Iraq may have its own killing fields if the American military occupation ends soon. There are already killing fields in Iraq, and they exist as a consequence of the American military occupation.
In 2008, we need to elect a President who is willing to acknowledge the reality of the Iraqi killing fields, and put an end to the military occupation under which they are taking place.
(Sources: CNN, August 25, 2007; Observer-Reporter, August 26, 2007)
