From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'

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.

In Vietnam, the military claimed they were unable to tell the North Vietnamese from the South Vietnamese. It was the number one excuse for indiscriminate firing into crowds of people. Currently, in Iraq, the troops are unable to distinguish between the Iraqis and what the American government has conveniently called "insurgents," so, the same principle applies here as in Vietnam ... indiscriminate firing into crowds of people.

The amount of anger that festers in the troops in Iraq amazes me, considering the troops were ordered to invade a country heralding the banner of 9/11 when that country had absolutely nothing to do with terror attacks against America. And when the troops were not greeted with flowers and cheers, the American administration immediately labeled all civilian opposition to the invasion the "insurgency."

Two years later, 1,600 American troops dead, 100,000 Iraqis dead, and Dumbya is still glassy-eyed and declaring we are "winning" the war on terror in Iraq (despite the fact that terrorist attacks are at an all time high), and that "freedom" is on the march.

Someone find me a toilet bowl where I can unload this dump.