Tuesday, July 04, 2006
The Neocons' War and A Girl Named Abeer Hamza
Casualties * Victims * "The Marlboro Man"
When the war ends, as it will some day, and the soldiers come home how will we remember it? What will stand out---stories about the daily danger faced by many, unusual bravery of some, or the images of the prisoners and their gleefully sadistic guards at Abu Ghraib? Then there was the failed propaganda spun around Jessica Lynch. An attempt was made to make Pat Tillman a hero but he lost his life in friendly fire in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Or are we going to remember what took place in Mahmudiyah on March 12th? The Post: "Ex-Soldier Charged in Killing of Iraqi Family". What have we wrought! I suppose that there will be people on both sides of the spectrum. Some will see nothing but good in Operation Iraqi Freedom while others will decry the lies that led us to the war and the lives lost: (current numbers: 2538 American soldiers, more than 40,000 Iraqi civilians not counting victims of the factional strife raging between the Sunnis and Shias).
Abeer Hamza was raped and killed one night in March. Life will never be the same for surviving members of her family. She could have been a daughter, grand daughter or sister to one of us. Rapes and murders take place here in America and we react with horror and sadness. Four soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, part of the 4th Infantry Division, are under investigation for rape and murder of Abeer Qasim Hamza. BAGHDAD, July 2 -- Fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza was afraid, her mother confided in a neighbor. As pretty as she was young, the girl had attracted the unwelcome attention of U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint that the girl had to pass through almost daily in their village in the south-central city of Mahmudiyah, her mother told the neighbor.
- Fakhriyah feared that the Americans might come for her daughter at night, at their home. She asked her neighbor if Abeer might sleep at his house, with the women there.
- Janabi said he agreed.
- Then, "I tried to reassure her, remove some of her fear," Janabi said. "I told her, the Americans would not do such a thing."
- Abeer did not live to take up the offer of shelter.
- Instead, attackers came to the girl's house the next day, apparently separating Abeer from her mother, father and young sister.
- Janabi and others knowledgeable about the incident said they believed that the attackers raped Abeer in another room. Medical officials who handled the bodies also said the girl had been raped, but they did not elaborate.
- Before leaving, the attackers fatally shot the four family members -- two of Abeer's brothers had been away at school -- and attempted to set Abeer's body on fire, according to Janabi, another neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity, the mayor of Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator with knowledge of the case.
"The Marlboro Man"
Paul Harris in The Guardian: "Combat can change a life in a second. The snap of a sniper's bullet or the blast of a bomb will instantly end it or turn a healthy body into a maimed wreck. But for US marine James Blake Miller what changed his life was the sudden shutter click of a war photographer's camera. On a rooftop in Falluja, Miller was captured in a picture that has become one of the enduring images of the Iraq war. It showed his wan face, streaked with mud and blood, in a moment of reflection. His eyes stared out, tired yet determined. From his lips drooped a cigarette, curling a wisp of thin pale smoke."
*
- The image hit the world on 10 November, 2004, as US marines stormed into Falluja to try to end a war that was supposed to have finished more than a year earlier. It appeared on newspaper front pages and made the cover of Time.
- Miller's image became a symbol of steely resolve, of weary-yet-determined struggle, of the toughness of the American fighting man having a cigarette break before finishing the job. It captured a moment when most Americans still thought the invasion of Iraq a worthy undertaking.
- Now Miller is a different symbol in a different time. As the war has dragged on, Miller's life has collapsed in the face of post-traumatic stress disorder. He draws a disability pension for his condition and his personal life is a wreck. He suffers from nightmares, panic attacks and survivor's guilt. Despite the immense goodwill of a grateful nation, Miller has slumped into struggle and despair. Last week came the news that he and his childhood sweetheart, Jessica, were getting divorced.
- Marlboro Man is no longer an icon for the American warrior ethic. He is a symbol of pain and suffering and the enormous problems endured by veterans returning home. He has become the public face of shell-shock. No longer the victor, Miller has become one of the war's victims.
- In the Appalachian hills which Miller calls home, the word for grandfather is 'papaw'. Miller's step-papaw, Joe Lee, was a Vietnam veteran. In interviews Miller has described how Papaw Joe Lee would get drunk and tell war stories. Then Papaw would get upset and tearful at the memories of death and killing in Vietnam and eventually his wife, fearful of scaring the grandchildren, would tell him to be quiet.
Death
Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?
Who was the dead body?
Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?
Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?
Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?
Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body
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This reminds me of Sergeant Frank Ronghi, a Gulf War vet who murdered and sodomized an 11-year old girl in Kosovo. Ronghi took with him another soldier, a private, who finally turned him in. He told him: "(it was) easy to get away with something like this in a Third World country". Sergeant Christopher Rice, who was on duty the night Ronghi murdered the child, added: "He knew because he'd done it before in the desert (in operation 'Desert Storm' in Iraq)."
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