For some reason, the grunt's love song made the brass cringe:
"I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me . . . as the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally."
Cpl. Joshua Belile had a recording contract and everything, but, uh-uh. No singing Marine's gonna be regaling America with the sadistic pleasures to be had in occupied Iraq, no sir, not with all the atrocity investigations going on these days, and the dirty truth of our Middle East adventure oozing into the coverage of even the most administration-sympathetic media outlets.
Last week I wrote a column about horror on the macro level in Iraq: the likely serious health consequences resulting from widespread use of depleted uranium munitions, constituting a crime against not just the Iraqis but the whole world, because of airborne radiation poisoning. This week, horror on the micro level is once again making the news, with the arrest of Steven Green, a recently discharged GI, in connection with the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, along with the murder of her parents and 7-year-old sister, four months ago in Mahmoudiya.
Atrocity damage control requires isolating such events, not just vertically (keep the blame as far down the chain of command as possible), but horizontally, so that journalists and the public at large don't start thinking they see a pattern of barbarism in our mission to liberate Iraq. A perfunctory investigation followed by widely publicized punishment needs to end each matter as it comes up.
But suddenly the embedded media aren't so compliant. As we read about the brutal, premeditated murders in Mahmoudiya on March 12, we're likely to get a recap of other criminal investigations under way or recently concluded: the Haditha massacre, a shooting in Fallujah (eight servicemen charged with murder), another shooting in Ramadi, the deaths of detainees here and there. Indeed, we might even get a civilian body count thrown in. The acknowledged Iraqi dead are apparently up to 50,000 in the mainstream media (even though the British medical journal Lancet published a study putting the likely total at twice that - a year and a half ago).
All of which brings me back to Cpl. Belile's derailed recording career. The song he'd posted on the Internet and hoped to make a splash with - "Hadji Girl" - tells the story of a GI who falls for a local girl at an Iraqi Burger King. He accompanies her home but, oops, it's a trap. The dad and brother, shouting "jihad," brandish their AK-47s, so he pulls the sister in front of him as a shield and (ha ha) she's the one who gets shot. Then he returns fire with his M-16 and blows the rest of the family "to eternity."
Adding to the tenderness of this song, which, according to Marine Times, the high command has apparently forbidden Belile to record, is the fact that "hadji" is a racist term, the new slur for Arabs and Muslims, Iraq war vet Aiden Delgado explained on blackcommentator.com. "It is used extensively in the military," he said, ". . . with the same kind of connotation as 'gook,' 'Charlie' or the n-word. Official Army documents now use it in reference to Iraqis or Arabs. It's real common." He also said of his Army training: "We sang in cadences. And the chants had anti-Arab themes. Like burning turbans, killing ragheads."
I humbly submit there's no such thing as a benign occupation - that you cannot subjugate a people without also dehumanizing them. This is called racism. It's the ever-present undercurrent of our mission in Iraq and it's as insidious and life-threatening to Iraqis as DU poisoning, as the story of a real-life "Hadji Girl" in Mahmoudiya makes clear.
According to the Washington Post and other accounts, the young girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, had the extraordinary misfortune of attracting, with her good looks, the interest of some of the GIs who manned the checkpoint she was required to pass through several times a day. They made advances at her. She was afraid, she told her mother. Her unspeakable tragedy illustrates a basic fact of occupation: Iraqi civilians are at the mercy of immature young Americans with guns. They have no rights.
A witness "found Abeer sprawled dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow next to her consumed by fire, and her dress pushed up to her neck," the Post said.
Unlike the Marine in the song, the boys from the 502nd Infantry Regiment weren't lured into temptation by a femme fatale. They were on the prowl for spoils. Pvt. Green and his buddies, accounts tell us, allegedly planned the operation in advance: rape the girl, kill her, set her on fire, kill the witnesses, blame it on the insurgents. It almost worked.
Only after an act of grotesque counter-barbarism - the torture and beheading of two American soldiers from the very same unit - did a guilt-ridden fellow soldier spill the beans about the Mahmoudiya atrocity, during a post-beheading session with a stress counselor.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, suggests that what we're witnessing is not necessarily a spike in GI murders of Iraqi civilians all of a sudden but, rather, a no-longer-avoidable pressure to investigate them. "It may be," he told the San Francisco Chronicle, "that this has been going on all along and it was just not being reported."
I'd say these murders are an absolutely predictable form of the "collateral damage" of occupation. Its architects are the ones who belong on trial, for the rape of a nation.
I think that it is entirely possible that the military knew about this horrid atrocity and deliberately discharged Mr. Green so that they could get him out of Iraq. Then one of the other soldiers in the unit cracked and the secret was out. I think that it is entirely possible that the two soldiers that were tortured and beheaded were killed because they were involved in the rape and murders, and the guy who cracked did so because he was afraid he was next. Better to be in military prison than to be beheaded....The military takes these young kids, puts them in intense training, teaching them to kill, showing them how to override their natural aversion to killing their fellow man, and then puts them in Iraq where nothing is like they were trained for. Fear is a constant presence, immaturity makes them trigger-happy, and the military's culture of racism degrades the value of Iraqi lives. Then add the permissive environment which okays torture from the Bush admin. on down, and you have a catastrophe looking for a place to happen.
by
Regina Carpenter (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments)
on Thursday, July 6, 2006 at 3:05:37 PM
It says a lot about a few of us when it takes the atrocious discription of a Killing.. Of Iraqi innocents... to grab our attention to what is going on in ""Our " Liberation Efforts in Iraq. You must please make note of the Fact I said 'our' in a quite facetious manner. I do not believe Anyone could hear such as this 'Hadji Girl' {song ?) and consider it as 'tongue -in-cheek-Funny, or as being entertaining in any way; Certainly not myself. How dare anyone write such as this, and even attempt to pass it off as acceptable rhetoric... from anyone, anywhere. This is far beyond 'right to free expression.' I know this preemptive, unprovoked 'war' Bush took upon himself to "DO,' ( Using our Military to carry out His Wishes..) has changed many of our men & women into killing machines.. but It is Not them that should be on trial for these atrocities they are committing in our name... but it should be the monsters that Manufactured this Horrible dilemma for mankind to endure. Put these safely [ so far ] ensconced scoundrel "Civilian-executive-'leaders' on trial, not some already weak-minded private who lost whatever bit of sanity he Might have possessed prior to being sent over to Iraq as convenient Filler-fodder for Their war-machine venture . Now That is What Would be True Justice. ( Not that he or anyone else in our military should be 'excused' of absolute murder, such as has been committed in Iraq..That we Do know about.) I salute Lt.Watada for refusing to deploy.. again...to Iraq ( because he believes that war to be illegal. Remember, he Does have the given right to refuse to follow orders that he knows is wrong and illegal...against all conscience of what is honorable and right.) His actions now are going to save many innocent lives, for more soldiers will stand beside him, expressing their convictions, as well. So Bush takes this Mans'' action as a personal affront against HIM ? That tells the world what kind of man is 'leading ? this country over the precipice. I am but one of millions who feels exactly as I do. Make no mistake about that. VedaGFlick
by
VGFlick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 76 comments)
on Thursday, July 6, 2006 at 3:25:33 PM
3 comments
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