Wolcott: Kind of a Shame (US soldiers shooting Iraqi civilians)

[kskiska]

From The Economist, January 1st-7th 2005 (registration required; oh just go out and buy the damn thing):

"There is only one traffic law in Ramadi these days: when Americans approach, Iraqis scatter. Horns blaring, brakes screaming, the midday traffic skids to the side of the road as a line of Humvee jeeps ferrying American marines rolls the wrong way up the main street. Every vehicle, that is, except one beat-up old taxi. Its elderly driver, flapping his outstretched hands, seems, amazingly, to be trying to turn the convoy back. Gun turrets swivel and lock on to him, as a hefty marine sargeant leaps into the road, levels an assault rifle at his turbanned head, and screams: 'Back this bitch up, motherfucker!'

"The old man should have read the bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: 'Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied.' In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching with 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: 'If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,' says a bullish lieutenant. 'It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people.'"

Kind of a shame, killing the people you're trying to democratize, but after awhile, says the same lieutenant, "It gets to the point where you can't wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody..."

With characteristic dry English understatement, The Economist's embedded reporter (Economist pieces are unbylined) notes, "hen America's well-drilled and well-fed fighters attempt subtler tasks than killing people, problems arise." Their contempt for Iraqis is undisguised and dramatically expressed: a soldier, confronted by "jeering schoolchildren," fires canisters of buckshot from his grenade-launcher at them, and marines busting down doors in Ramadi scream at trembling middle-aged women: "Bitch, where's the guns?" Small wonder, ventures the correspondent, that "many Iraqis are probably more scared of American troops than of insurgents."

more…
http://jameswolcott.com/

[SariesNightly]

1. Supplicant

\Pros"trate\, v. t. & vb. n. {Prostrating}.]
1. To lay fiat; to throw down; to level; to fell; as, to
prostrate the body; to prostrate trees or plants.
--Evelyn.

2. to overthrow; to demolish; to destroy; to deprive of
efficiency; to ruin; as, to prostrate a village; to
prostrate a government; to prostrate law or justice.

3. To throw down, or cause to fall in humility or adoration;
to cause to bow in humble reverence; used reflexively; as,
he prostrated himself. --Milman.

4. To cause to sink totally; to deprive of strength; to
reduce; as, a person prostrated by fever.

[bowens43]

2. Support the troops?

[klyon]

5. respect the troops

bring them home

KL

[frankieT]

3. damn you pigs !

Democracy & CIVILIZATION !????????

[RedCloud]

4. Civilians probably intended to vote against the Bush puppet. N/T