No big surprise here. But it still rankles me every time I hear of yet another cover-up. What is it about government servants, our representatives, our ‘protectors’, that allows them to believe we lowly citizens are ‘better off’ not knowing the real truth?
The latest example of our leaders’ misdirected sense of loyalty to keep us in the dark for our own good is classified military documents published on the WikiLeaks site that show the actual civilian death toll of the Iraq war to be 15,000 cases higher than previously reported.
Why keep this number classified? Keeping this number classified only leads to the public wanting to know what is being covered up, who is being protected, and who gains from keeping this number ‘classified’.
The documents show that the vast majority of slain Iraqi civilians were killed by other Iraqis. Why cover this up?
The New York Times says the documents disclosed "many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians -- at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations" and it said there were at least four cases of lethal shootings from helicopters.
Now, this is something I can believe in as the cause for the cover-up. Because the military doesn’t want to admit they made ‘errors of judgment’ that lead to the deaths of civilians. But what if some of these cases were not simply ‘errors of judgment’?
More questions are beginning to surface.
The Guardian said the documents detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, the documents show, it said.
A lack of action that appears to benefit the U.S. military.
War crimes. Committed by U.S. military. This is a solid reason for a cover-up. After all, our leaders don’t want the American public to have further indisputable evidence that we Americans are a bunch of heathens and will resort to the illegal and immoral use of torture. Haven’t we already been down this road?
History has shown that Americans, as well as all humans, are not above using violence against their fellow man. Not only in war zones, even here at home. Even within our own families. We have all read of reports of people brutalizing their own family members, the ones they supposedly love and cherish. What does this say about mankind?
Civilians don’t need to be shielded from war crimes. We need to know that our leaders actually care about ending the abuse of power over other people. We need to be assured that when we are told we are being protected that it doesn’t mean we are being ‘protected’ from the ‘truth’. This action only deepens the mistrust that is ever present between politicians and the general public.
War crimes need to be prosecuted. And the first step is to bring these acts out into the open, wherever they occur. This step needs to be taken so that we can begin to evolve from our animalistic and brutal ways. Pipe dream, I know, but continued cover-up never really does any good. These are truths that everyone already knows.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said it best: "The attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts and continues long after a war ends". Isn’t it time for a real change?
