Congratulations
American Heroes...
By Baghdad Burning
17 November, 2004
Baghdad Burning
I'm
feeling sick- literally. I can't get the video Al-Jazeera played out
of my head:
The mosque strewn
with bodies of Iraqis- not still with prayer or meditation, but prostrate
with death- Some seemingly bloated
an old man with a younger one
leaning upon him
legs, feet, hands, blood everywhere
The
dusty sun filtering in through the windows
the stillness of the
horrid place. Then the stillness is broken- in walk some marines, guns
pointed at the bodies... the mosque resonates with harsh American voices
arguing over a body- was he dead, was he alive? I watched, tense, wondering
what they would do- I expected the usual Marines treatment- that a heavy,
booted foot would kick the man perhaps to see if he groaned. But it
didn't work that way- the crack of gunfire suddenly explodes in the
mosque as the Marine fires at the seemingly dead man and then come the
words, "He's dead now."
"He's dead
now." He said it calmly, matter-of-factly, in a sort of sing-song
voice that made my blood run cold
and the Marines around him didn't
care. They just roamed around the mosque and began to drag around the
corpses because, apparently, this was nothing to them. This was probably
a commonplace incident.
We sat, horrified,
stunned with the horror of the scene that unfolded in front of our eyes.
It's the third day of Eid and we were finally able to gather as a family-
a cousin, his wife and their two daughters, two aunts, and an elderly
uncle. E. and my cousin had been standing in line for two days to get
fuel so we could go visit the elderly uncle on the final day of a very
desolate Eid. The room was silent at the end of the scene, with only
the voice of the news anchor and the sobs of my aunt. My little cousin
flinched and dropped her spoon, face frozen with shock, eyes wide with
disbelief, glued to the television screen, "Is he dead? Did they
kill him?" I swallowed hard, trying to gulp away the lump lodged
in my throat and watched as my cousin buried his face in his hands,
ashamed to look at his daughter.
"What was I
supposed to tell them?" He asked, an hour later, after we had sent
his two daughters to help their grandmother in the kitchen. "What
am I supposed to tell them- 'Yes darling, they killed him- the Americans
killed a wounded man; they are occupying our country, killing people
and we are sitting here eating, drinking and watching tv'?" He
shook his head, "How much more do they have to see? What is left
for them to see?"
They killed a wounded
man. It's hard to believe. They killed a man who was completely helpless-
like he was some sort of diseased animal. I had read the articles and
heard the stories of this happening before- wounded civilians being
thrown on the side of the road or shot in cold blood- but to see it
happening on television is something else- it makes me crazy with anger.
And what will happen
now? A criminal investigation against a single Marine who did the shooting?
Just like what happened with the Abu Ghraib atrocities? A couple of
people will be blamed and the whole thing will be buried under the rubble
of idiotic military psychologists, defense analysts, Pentagon officials
and spokespeople and it will be forgotten. In the end, all anyone will
remember is that a single Marine shot and killed a single Iraqi 'insurgent'
and it won't matter anymore.
It's typical American
technique- every single atrocity is lost and covered up by blaming a
specific person and getting it over with. What people don't understand
is that the whole military is infested with these psychopaths. In this
last year we've seen murderers, torturers and xenophobes running around
in tanks and guns. I don't care what does it: I don't care if it's the
tension, the fear, the 'enemy'
it's murder. We are occupied by
murderers. We're under the same pressure, as Iraqis, except that we
weren't trained for this situation, and yet we're all expected to be
benevolent and understanding and, above all, grateful. I'm feeling sick,
depressed and frightened. I don't know what to say anymore
they
aren't humans and they don't deserve any compassion.
So why is the world
so obsessed with beheadings? How is this so very different? The difference
is that the people who are doing the beheadings are extremists
the people slaughtering Iraqis- torturing in prisons and shooting wounded
prisoners- are "American Heroes". Congratulations, you must
be so proud of yourselves today.
Excuse me please,
I'm going to go be sick for a little while.