An Iraqi prisoner is surrounded by American military dog handlers at Abu Ghraib prison in this photo dated December 12, 2003.

“The Red Cross saw U.S. troops keeping Iraqi prisoners naked for days in darkness at the Abu Ghraib jail in October, and was told by the intelligence officer in charge it was “part of the process,” a leaked report said on Monday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also described British troops forcing Iraqi detainees to kneel and stomping on their necks in an incident in which one prisoner died.”(Source: Reuters)

In the week since I last wrote, the process I predicted in this rant has become obvious.

The doubts over the the veracity of the UK abuse photos published in The Mirror have been extended to a general disbelief or refusal to acknowledge our war crimes against the people of Iraq.

In the US, their photos haven’t been under the same doubts and so the political fallout has been more difficult to sidestep. Rumsfeld has been under pressure to resign and he may end up the sacrificial lamb, given up to placate growing US public disquiet. The average person, of whatever nationality, doesn’t want their military to go round torturing civilians, particularly in an alleged liberation. The US public will not take well to being slapped in the face with the brutality of their military. Every day, new photos of US torture are being published. This war was meant to bolster US confidence, to be a step on the PNAC path towards an American Empire.

How many US citizens (who aren’t paid-up Klansmen) actually still believe they are the “good guys?” That the war crimes carried out by their forces are prefectly morally justifiable?

But why am I bashing the US government when there’s evil here at home? In fact, why do I see British people on British marches spouting anti-American crap, as if the USA is the only source of evil in the world today?

Take a look around. It’s Britain that enabled the illegal invasion of Iraq. It’s Britain who acted as a bridge between the USA and wavering European nations, dragging Spain into the bloodshed behind us. And it’s British troops who’ve been shooting eight-year-old children dead without an eyebrow being raised by their commanders:

Hanan Matrud

“Hanan Matrud was playing with three friends when a British Army Warrior armoured vehicle pulled up near her home in a village in southern Iraq. As they ran forward to see what was going on, a shot rang out.

The girl, eight years old, was hit in the stomach with a rifle round. She was taken to the hospital, and had emergency surgery. She died the next day.

There is little dispute that a British soldier was responsible. To her family and neighbours, it was cold-blooded murder. The Army says she was probably hit when a warning shot was fired to disperse a stone-throwing mob. An inquiry has proved, the Army says, that the soldiers were not at fault.

Hanan was a “very unfortunate casualty of war”.

That conclusion is contradicted by a witness, Mizher Yassin, who claims the troops were under no threat. He says Hanan was standing in an alley about 60 to 70 metres from the armoured car when a soldier aimed and fired a shot.”(Source: The Independent)

Amnesty International goes on to detail another 37 similar deaths. And those are just the ones it has evidence about.

What a haven Iraq must be for psychopaths. You can be shipped out there and murder little kids, women, whoever you want to and no-one will punish you. As long as you’re wearing a US or UK uniform.

This is the madness of war. Can you imagine if an occupying army shot a child in Britain? We would rightly scream for justice for that child and punishment for its murderer.

But when that child is a Muslim, when the murder is a long way away and when we do the murdering, that life doesn’t matter.

Only our lives matter. Only our casualties, our grief. Every pious, furrowed-brow sermon by Butcher Blair confirms how we see the innocents of Iraq.