'I killed innocent people for our government'

By Paul Rockwell
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/9316830p-10241546c.html

the above link contains the entire text to this article, these are only a few snippets from the original text

For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.

The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.

What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?

A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.

Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?

A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?

A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.

Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?

A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.

Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?

A: Five times. There was Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn't really give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty good. Then we inspected the back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.

Q: The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives. In all the incidents did you find that to be the case?

A: Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions. As a matter of fact, we lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.

Continued ... http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_7883.shtml

... are exploited for purposes that betray the honorable service they endeavor to give their country. The realization that one has become a tool for an agenda that contradicts one's beliefs and values must be incredibly painful for someone who thought they knew and understood their place in the universe.

Of the many crimes for which the Bush administration is guilty, its corrupting influence on people, institutions, and the nation as a whole is the most insidious. Abu Ghraib is the most visible manifestation, but any number of ugly developments over the last few years can be traced directly back to the cabal that is just now beginning to lose its grip on our country.

We must not rest until we pry their fingers -- cold and dead if necessary -- from the throat of our republic.