Iraq War Veteran: US Policy Caused ME ’Blowback’, I Helped Create ’ISIS’

Local Editor

An Iraq War veteran and US Marine spoke out about the atrocities and criminal activities he and his fellow soldiers engaged in during the Iraq War..

Former Marine Vincent Emanuele revealed that he had "helped create ISIS," claiming he knew it would lead to "blowback" in the Middle East.

Emanuele's acknowledgement of responsibility came in an article that was posted on TeleSUR's English website, in which he hoped to answer the often raised question of "Where did ISIS come from?"

"When I was stationed in Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 2003-2005, I didn't know what the repercussions of the war would be, but I knew there would be a reckoning," he wrote. "That retribution, otherwise known as blowback, is currently being experienced around the world with no end in sight."

Emanuele further explained that his enlightenment came on his second tour to Iraq and was the result of a simple question.

"I saw my fellow Marines kill innocent people, torture innocent civilians, destroy property, mutilate dead bodies, run over dead corpses, laugh and photograph people while doing so," he said. "For me it was very simple. I sat there in Iraq and I asked myself: How would I behave? What would I think if I was in the shoes of the Iraqi people?"

Also in his article, Emanuele described how he and his platoon literally trashed Mesopotamia by throwing garbage out of their Humvee, and pelting children with Skittles, water bottles full of urine, rocks, and debris. He recalled stories told by soldiers of torture carried out on detainees in makeshift detention facilities.

"I vividly remember the marines telling me about punching, slapping, kicking, elbowing, kneeing Iraqis," wrote Emanuele.

Eventually, this would have been at the height of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2003, which came to public attention when Amnesty International published reports of human rights abuses by the US military and its coalition partners at detention centers and prisons in Iraq. One former prisoner of the US who survived was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is now the leader of "ISIS."

Emanuele also mentioned that he began educating himself during his second tour by talking to family and friends and engaging in the work of anti-war activists, as well as learning about the activities of groups such as Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Vietnam Veterans against the War.

"I knew what I was seeing was wrong, I knew it was immoral, I knew it was unjust, I knew it was illegal," said Emanuele, "and I knew that we would pay severe consequences in the form of the blowback as we are seeing with groups like "ISIS."

He further said he had to come to terms with what he had participated in, and that he viewed the war as part of a long history of US aggression that wasn't just about Iraq and Afghanistan, or the wars in Vietnam or Korea. It goes back to the genocidal practices employed against Native Americans, African-American slaves, and people in South and Latin America.

Emanuele hoped his article would better inform people, especially in the US, about what the US was doing and is doing around the world.

"All too many victims of war and veterans, particularly these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader Middle East, in North Africa and the drone strikes, are destroying people's lives," Emanuele concluded.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team