Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The anti-war movement usually finds its most poignant spokespeople from veterans and current military service people, folks whose unabashed love of country or fear of incarceration allowed them to put themselves in harm's way to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Bob Herbert's recent column profiles one such dedicated young citizen, Aidan Delgado, and relates some of his experiences with the current Iraq War.
Full disclosure: I never supported the current Iraq War in any way. Never. To me, the necessary conflict was against the multinational terrorist conglomerate called al-Qaeda, and any diversion from that sacred mission would result in unneeded death, unwanted casualties, and unsurpassed debt. Today, that's the American status quo. Bill Maher gets it wrong every Friday night: just because the Iraqi people have made certain strides towards democracy in recent months doesn't excuse or justify the hundreds upon hundreds of American servicemen lives or the billions upon billions of American taxpayer dollars our nation has spent to pacify Iraq for petroleum conglomerates. In case you've forgotten what those dead soldiers look like, or how closely those dead soldiers resemble your brother or sister, your father or mother, your friend or neighbor, check out the Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen. Remember, the numbers have no where to go but up.
So I find Bob Herbert's recent column a much-needed public service. My father fought in Vietnam, and he never encouraged me to join the military. He never expressed any outright vitriol over his service, but mostly, he refused to discuss it. After I learned more about the Vietnam War, and it's effects on domestic American life, I understood why. War is killing. To 'raise and support Armies' and 'provide and maintain a Navy', we train those enterprising, volunteering American youth to kill, efficiently and under orders. Against all domestic logic and sanctions against the taking of human life, we train our best and brightest to end life on command. Are we then surprised by improper, immoral actions against the unarmed and the non-prosecuted like the depressing phenomena at Abu Ghraib prison?
Yes. We are appalled, shocked, terrified. We pretend that no American soldier could possibly act in such a manner, then realize we can't turn away from the pictorial evidence. We grudgingly acknowledge that war crimes can be committed by anyone -- except our military leaders. This week yet another meaningless private acknowledged her culpability in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, after various reports washing the hands of Pentagon higher-ups have become public knowledge. In this context, Herbert's exposure of Delgado's story become a welcome anecdotal glimpse into the unmitigated, unconquerable rage of average American soldiers, driven past sanity and normal behavior by elongated tours of duty in hot, dangerous, undecipherable wastelands where Old Glory is hated and people murder the soldiers' friends with roadside bombs. What's immediately apparent to this observer is the immediate, just-under-the-surface American racism that bursts onto the scene whenever soldiers in these circumstances speak openly with candor and without censor. When top officers speak with humor about "heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans", all that 'support the troops' false patriotism must give way to an unassailable truth: killing dehumanizes good people, who then have no compunction with dehumanizing others.
Think about it: having the most nauseating abuses of American military might in recent public memory emerged from breakdowns in military discipline and honor caused by hazardous overwork and unchecked racist hate for American opponents? Consider where racist epithets like "gook", "Charlie", "raghead", "skinny", "sand nigger", and now, "haji" have emerged. We have no need to disrespect the average Iraqi in order to eliminate terrorism and promote democracy in that war-torn, battered land. When our American military forces, through sins of omission or commission, foster this mentality of hatful racist difference in the rank-and-file serviceman culture, then the sickening murder, torture, abuses of power, and violence that characterized the infamous American operation of Abu Ghraib prison will persist throughout the American military, leading to future My Lai's, Son Thang-4's, and obscene Polaroids where round-faced, acne-scarred privates smile brightly around the bloody, mewling, naked forms of faceless brown victims just swarthy enough to resemble international terrorists they nor their families have ever had any contact with. Damn domestic American due process legal protections! If they speak out of turn, shoot them. If they speak Arabic or Vietnamese or any language other than English, hit them. If your buddy was injured by them, or your fellow citizens killed in crashed airplanes by people who may or may not share broad religious background, phenotypic characteristics, or linguistic similarity with them, then imprison them secretly, without the benefit of legal protection like the Geneva Conventions you yourself would want, beat them, torture them, and kill them if they get on your nerves. That's George W. Bush's America -- hurt those that can't defend themselves, and eliminate them if they scream in pain too loudly. And if we here at home speak openly about the un-Christian immorality of such military action, we're helping the terrorists.
Aidan Delgado and Bob Herbert deserve commendation and praise for exposing these everyday abuses to the American people. Patriotic domesticity during times of war involves reminding your nation of all of its positive aspects during its most disheartening times. We don't believe in torture in America, so our soldiers should not inflict torture upon anyone. We don't believe in random violence toward defenseless citizens in America, so our soldiers should not randomly lacerate Iraqi citizens with American symbols of crass global capitalism. No one needs a Coke that badly. Further, we should not be afraid to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any and all American servicemen who, in either in frustration over lives they can't control or rank-assured complacency, forget the basic universal themes of human dignity, American equality, and personal self-control that characterizes what it means to be an American.
I was born a member of the greatest nation in human history. I believe we all should work without end to deserve the American birthright, by respecting the rights of the downtrodden and distressed instead of using their bodies as anonymous punching bags while we fill up our Toyota Camrys with their natural oil. I won't sell my national dignity for twenty cents less at the 7-Eleven pump, and neither should you.
Update: Check out Reappropriate, Michelle Malkin, Blackfive.net, Baldilocks, and Outside the Beltway for more discussion on this column. And feel free to leave comments here; I'm curious as to what you think.
I spent some time recently with Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old religion major at New College of Florida, a small, highly selective school in Sarasota.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, before hearing anything about the terror attacks that would change the direction of American history, Mr. Delgado enlisted as a private in the Army Reserve. Suddenly, in ways he had never anticipated, the military took over his life. He was trained as a mechanic and assigned to the 320th Military Police Company in St. Petersburg. By the spring of 2003, he was in Iraq. Eventually he would be stationed at the prison compound in Abu Ghraib.
Mr. Delgado's background is unusual. He is an American citizen, but because his father was in the diplomatic corps, he grew up overseas. He spent eight years in Egypt, speaks Arabic and knows a great deal about the various cultures of the Middle East. He wasn't happy when, even before his unit left the states, a top officer made wisecracks about the soldiers heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans.
"He laughed," Mr. Delgado said, "and everybody in the unit laughed with him."
read more
Full disclosure: I never supported the current Iraq War in any way. Never. To me, the necessary conflict was against the multinational terrorist conglomerate called al-Qaeda, and any diversion from that sacred mission would result in unneeded death, unwanted casualties, and unsurpassed debt. Today, that's the American status quo. Bill Maher gets it wrong every Friday night: just because the Iraqi people have made certain strides towards democracy in recent months doesn't excuse or justify the hundreds upon hundreds of American servicemen lives or the billions upon billions of American taxpayer dollars our nation has spent to pacify Iraq for petroleum conglomerates. In case you've forgotten what those dead soldiers look like, or how closely those dead soldiers resemble your brother or sister, your father or mother, your friend or neighbor, check out the Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen. Remember, the numbers have no where to go but up.
So I find Bob Herbert's recent column a much-needed public service. My father fought in Vietnam, and he never encouraged me to join the military. He never expressed any outright vitriol over his service, but mostly, he refused to discuss it. After I learned more about the Vietnam War, and it's effects on domestic American life, I understood why. War is killing. To 'raise and support Armies' and 'provide and maintain a Navy', we train those enterprising, volunteering American youth to kill, efficiently and under orders. Against all domestic logic and sanctions against the taking of human life, we train our best and brightest to end life on command. Are we then surprised by improper, immoral actions against the unarmed and the non-prosecuted like the depressing phenomena at Abu Ghraib prison?
Yes. We are appalled, shocked, terrified. We pretend that no American soldier could possibly act in such a manner, then realize we can't turn away from the pictorial evidence. We grudgingly acknowledge that war crimes can be committed by anyone -- except our military leaders. This week yet another meaningless private acknowledged her culpability in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, after various reports washing the hands of Pentagon higher-ups have become public knowledge. In this context, Herbert's exposure of Delgado's story become a welcome anecdotal glimpse into the unmitigated, unconquerable rage of average American soldiers, driven past sanity and normal behavior by elongated tours of duty in hot, dangerous, undecipherable wastelands where Old Glory is hated and people murder the soldiers' friends with roadside bombs. What's immediately apparent to this observer is the immediate, just-under-the-surface American racism that bursts onto the scene whenever soldiers in these circumstances speak openly with candor and without censor. When top officers speak with humor about "heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans", all that 'support the troops' false patriotism must give way to an unassailable truth: killing dehumanizes good people, who then have no compunction with dehumanizing others.
Think about it: having the most nauseating abuses of American military might in recent public memory emerged from breakdowns in military discipline and honor caused by hazardous overwork and unchecked racist hate for American opponents? Consider where racist epithets like "gook", "Charlie", "raghead", "skinny", "sand nigger", and now, "haji" have emerged. We have no need to disrespect the average Iraqi in order to eliminate terrorism and promote democracy in that war-torn, battered land. When our American military forces, through sins of omission or commission, foster this mentality of hatful racist difference in the rank-and-file serviceman culture, then the sickening murder, torture, abuses of power, and violence that characterized the infamous American operation of Abu Ghraib prison will persist throughout the American military, leading to future My Lai's, Son Thang-4's, and obscene Polaroids where round-faced, acne-scarred privates smile brightly around the bloody, mewling, naked forms of faceless brown victims just swarthy enough to resemble international terrorists they nor their families have ever had any contact with. Damn domestic American due process legal protections! If they speak out of turn, shoot them. If they speak Arabic or Vietnamese or any language other than English, hit them. If your buddy was injured by them, or your fellow citizens killed in crashed airplanes by people who may or may not share broad religious background, phenotypic characteristics, or linguistic similarity with them, then imprison them secretly, without the benefit of legal protection like the Geneva Conventions you yourself would want, beat them, torture them, and kill them if they get on your nerves. That's George W. Bush's America -- hurt those that can't defend themselves, and eliminate them if they scream in pain too loudly. And if we here at home speak openly about the un-Christian immorality of such military action, we're helping the terrorists.
Aidan Delgado and Bob Herbert deserve commendation and praise for exposing these everyday abuses to the American people. Patriotic domesticity during times of war involves reminding your nation of all of its positive aspects during its most disheartening times. We don't believe in torture in America, so our soldiers should not inflict torture upon anyone. We don't believe in random violence toward defenseless citizens in America, so our soldiers should not randomly lacerate Iraqi citizens with American symbols of crass global capitalism. No one needs a Coke that badly. Further, we should not be afraid to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any and all American servicemen who, in either in frustration over lives they can't control or rank-assured complacency, forget the basic universal themes of human dignity, American equality, and personal self-control that characterizes what it means to be an American.
I was born a member of the greatest nation in human history. I believe we all should work without end to deserve the American birthright, by respecting the rights of the downtrodden and distressed instead of using their bodies as anonymous punching bags while we fill up our Toyota Camrys with their natural oil. I won't sell my national dignity for twenty cents less at the 7-Eleven pump, and neither should you.
Update: Check out Reappropriate, Michelle Malkin, Blackfive.net, Baldilocks, and Outside the Beltway for more discussion on this column. And feel free to leave comments here; I'm curious as to what you think.
12 Comments:
At 5/04/2005 10:15:00 AM, Anonymous said:;
you hit the nail on the head.... you managed to discuss the atrocity of the crimes committed by US soldiers on Iraqi soil and the circumstances surrounding them WITHOUT disrespecting the men and women who are serving our country there. i appreciate the lack of generalizations made and totally agree with the idea that we're basically being unamerican when we commit these kinds of "crimes" in iraq. rock out. - shelly
At 5/04/2005 11:09:00 AM, James said:;
Hey, thanks Shelly. I appreciate your candor. Please check out the other sites; many of the more conservative sites I noticed totally disbelieve Delgado's tales upon first glance.
It's weird; they respond to the slightest implication of wrongdoing on the part of American soldiers in conflict situations with angry disbelief and illogical denial. One can respect American servicemen while utilizing to the fullest extent congressional oversight’s investigative powers, provided by the very representative democracy these brave men and women fight for, to assure that basic American themes of human respect and personal dignity are not trampled in our frenzied dash to fight the terrorists "over there, so we won’t face them over here". Thanks again for your comment.
At 5/04/2005 11:42:00 AM, phillyjay said:;
It's not too hard to believe stuff like this happens.I have two friends I've known since highschool who work for uncle sam.One is in Iraq right now.He has told to when he came back earlier, that these things described in the article DO happen sometimes.
Like I said on Jenn's place, you're going to get a few bad apples in the american army.So I believe we have to pay good attention to them and keep them in line.I still believe most of our troops have a good head over their shoulders.
On the other hand this IS a war we are in, and war is not pretty.People can do some ugly things in the name war on both sides.
As for people with illogical denial, sometimes people are be so prideful and defensive they will overlook, downplay, or ignore certain troops blantant disrespect to the people they are suppose to help.
At 5/05/2005 03:42:00 PM, jaed said:;
Consider where racist epithets like "gook", "Charlie", "raghead", "skinny", "sand nigger", and now, "haji" have emerged.
Let me take a wild guess here: you have no idea what the word "hajji" means or how it is used socially by Arabic speakers.
(The word refers to a person who has made the obligatory Muslim pilgrimage [the hajj]. When someone comes back from the pilgrimage, he or she is referred to as a hajji. The word is sometimes also used as a respectful term of address to an older person, even one who hasn't made the hajj.)
In other words, soldiers who saw Iraqis using "hajji" as a respectful term of address picked it up. I've heard American military referring casually to Iraqis as "hajjis"; the context of the reference has always been either neutral or respectful. (Significantly, I have never heard an American refer to an enemy by this term.)
How "hajji" can be compared to a derogatory term like the others you list - let alone how it can be called "a racist epithet" - is beyond me. Perhaps in the mouth of an American soldier, any term, respectful or not, must be presumed racist in your eyes.
At 5/05/2005 05:31:00 PM, James said:;
Hi Jaed! Thanks for commenting! Please feel free to comment again.
But let me take a wild guess here: either you have no idea what Bob Herbert wrote or that people often sarcastically misuse respectful terms to display their derision for other groups of people. It is common knowledge that Muslims who have completed the Mecca pilgrimage are spoken of as completing the hajj. That is not my concern.
My problem is that with every newfound military conflict in a foreign land, the American Armed Forces hierarchy does not attempt in any efficient or meaningful way to eliminate racist epithets about the enemy from emerging in the mouths of American soldiers.
I mean, look at the list you quote. All those examples of racist hatespeech have emerged from American soldiers during wartime. If "hajji" is being used in the same way by Americans soldiers in Iraq now, that needs to be addressed.
The military can kill insurgents without being racist towards all Iraqis. Why does denial exist over this base truth? Perhaps in the mouths of some American citizens, nothing an American soldier does, respectful or not, can be considered incorrect in any way.
At 5/05/2005 05:39:00 PM, James said:;
Hey philly! I agree, we need real scrutiny in the military to prevent the eventual bad apples from corrupting all the good work most soldiers do without complaint.
I hope though, that the military hierarchy doesn't excuse military atrocity on he part of American soldiers with the belief that war is hell. We are better than that in America. This is why the denial aspect of some American citizens troubles me. To hear the Right tell it, all American soldiers are saints. Abu Ghraib should have taught them better; soldiers are soldiers, and treating them as if they can do no wrong doesn’t help them do no wrong. It helps us cover up information we don’t wish to see.
At 5/06/2005 10:29:00 AM, In Favor of Fairness said:;
The problem with delgado's lecture tour of allegations is that he refuses to name names or identify other witnesses; and he has filed no complaints with the authorities (either when he was in the service or since he's been out) Why won't he? Is he telling the truth? I don't know. But if he is, then he MUST name names and stop slandering every other soldier in his company who are all tarred with the same brush... And Bob Herbert needs to go back to journalism school.
At 5/07/2005 01:48:00 PM, James said:;
In Favor of Fairness has a point about Delgado’s need to seek the authorities help in prosecuting those responsible for the less than stellar behavior he reports. But speaking about it isn't slander.
Under that perspective, unless one has completed a Pentagon approved report on negative behavior by American soldiers, one can not speak about any examples of negative behavior by American soldiers – that effectively allows American soldiers to commit whatever actions, however heinous, in the guise of post-911 patriotism.
This isn't Fox News.
There is nothing wrong with civic accountability over military personnel. We do our brave men and women a disservice when we pretend that they could never be capable of immoral behavior.
And why does Bob Herbert need to return to journalism school?
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