Bob Herbert has a disturbing account of racism and gratuitous violence among American reservists in Iraq.
From ‘Gook’ to ‘Raghead’ (NYT | RSS)
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.” The officer’s comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: “Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They’d keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people’s heads.” He said he had confronted guys who were his friends about this practice. “I said to them: ‘What the hell are you doing? Like, what does this accomplish?’ And they responded just completely openly. They said: ‘Look, I hate being in Iraq. I hate being stuck here. And I hate being surrounded by hajis.’ ” “Haji” is the troops’ term of choice for an Iraqi. It’s used the way “gook” or “Charlie” was used in Vietnam.
Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong.
He said he believes that the absence of any real understanding of Arab or Muslim culture by most G.I.’s, combined with a lack of proper training and the unrelieved tension of life in a war zone, contributes to levels of fear and rage that lead to frequent instances of unnecessary violence. Mr. Delgado, an extremely thoughtful and serious young man, balked at the entire scene. “It drove me into a moral quagmire,” he said. “I walked up to my commander and gave him my weapon. I said: ‘I’m not going to fight. I’m not going to kill anyone. This war is wrong. I’ll stay. I’ll finish my job as a mechanic. But I’m not going to hurt anyone. And I want to be processed as a conscientious objector.’ “
Delgado eventually won conscientious objector status and his release from the Army Reserves. By his own admission, he didn’t fit in well with his unit and it’s not inconceivable that his tales are embellished. The fact that the unit in question is the 320th Military Police Company, though, gives credence to his account; they were involved in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.
There’s little doubt that slurs toward the enemy are a part of military culture; it may well be a necessary part of the dehumanization process required to be able to kill them without hesitation. During Desert Storm, it was not uncommon to term the Iraqis “ragheads” or “Abdul” or similar ethnically-based nicknames. Various racial terms were used in Vietnam and Korea. But it’s not necessarily racial; the Germans were called names during the two World Wars and so were the Brits during the War for Independence. One doesn’t worry about hurting the feelings of those one is engaged in trying to kill before they kill you.*
I do not believe that American soldiers are routinely smashing random Iraqis over the head with bottles and kicking children. For one thing, there is enough press over there that we’d have heard about it by now. More importantly, though, it’s just not part of the culture. It’s not inconceivable that a poorly led Reserve unit consisting mostly of civilian prison guards would have more than its share of abusive miscreants, however.
Update (0919): A commenter below wonders where our soldiers got glass Coke bottles. An interesting question, indeed. Apparently, though, they’re quite common in the Middle East these days. (We had cans during the 1991 Gulf War.) See, for example, here and here.
(1015): Juliette Ochieng is skeptical as well, noting some omissions from the story and some issues with Herbert’s credibility.
(1033): *I meant to note in the original piece that, of course, the mission in Iraq is different now and sensitivity to such things is vital. One doesn’t wish to dehumanize the local civilian population of a country one is trying to pacify and democratize. The fact that our soldiers have to be diplomats one instant and warriors the next is a unique characteristic of stabilization operations.
(1215): John Burgess correctly notes in the comments below, “The hitting of a human head by a glass Coke bottle will leave the head broken far more often than the bottle. Those bottles are nearly indestructable, and intentionally so.” I’m quickly moving from “skeptical” to “disbelieving” on this one.
(5-3 1427): Lorie Byrd and Blackfive’s Matt have more questions.
