ALLEGATIONS U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IRAQI GAYS DEBUNKED!

August 19, 2009.
Charges of U.S. soldiers murdering homosexuals in Iraq have been determined to be untrue, according to Queerity.com. When the gay Iraqi refugee advocate known by the pseudonym "Hussam" claimed at a recent fundraiser that members of the U.S. military were responsible for the torture and murder of gays in Iraq, alarm bells went off, as we reported earlier in a previous column. Hussam even claimed he had photo evidence of the atrocities—but refused to hand it over to investigators.
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Photo of an examiner with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command

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In an email to activist Michael Petrelis, Chris Grey, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) Chief of Public Affairs, wrote: “The CID’s Special Agents have looked into allegations that U.S. service members were involved in committing atrocities against gays in Iraq and have found no credible evidence that the allegations have merit.”

Photo of San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis, who received the U.S. Army's email debunking claims of U.S. atrocities against Iraqi LGBTs

Sworn statements to the Special Agents reveal Hussam said his words were taken out of context, he was misunderstood due to language barriers, and he was misquoted. Although he did show disturbing photographs at the event, he changed his story and stated those pictures of sectarian violence were in no way linked to U.S. service members. He also said he never witnessed any actions of U.S. Soldiers that he would classify as criminal or any evidence that U.S. service members target Iraqi men or women because of their sexual orientation.

Photo of Equality Flag Lapel Pin available from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on their website for $6.00

But Petrelis says Hussam has a "highly-developed command of the English language" and "in emails and phone conversations with me, threw out every excuse he could think of to absolve himself of any real responsibility to prove his outlandish allegations." Petrelis is calling on fundraiser's sponsors—the LGBT Bar Association and the Human Rights Campaign, whose headquarters were used to host the event—to issue an apology to the military men and women who serve our country.

Watch this video: “San Francisco Leaders (including activist Michael Petrelis, mentioned above) Speak Out On the Torture and Murder of GLBT Iraqis by their own people” May 17, 2009 (There will be more videos on this subject in tomorrow’s post):

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==copyright 2009==