Unbecoming An Officer - Unbecoming An American

This is the one that did it. This incident was the straw that broke the camel's back. With a nod to Jollyroger... I finally got it out. It's been rolling around in my mind all of this time. I feel better now.

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If there was any doubt about the stinking superior attitude Bush Americans have toward the Iraqi people, it vanished during Hugh Rimintons CNN news report from a village outside of the northern city of Tal Afar, near the Syrian border.

We spent the day before, Memorial Day 2007, with our Veterans For Peace brethren at the Arlington West Memorial on the beach, near the pier, in Oceanside, CA. Standing amid the rows of crosses representing the troops who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, it took VFP members and additional volunteers 5 1/2 hours to read each of the 3,457 names of the dead (ten more were killed in Iraq that day). It was a poignant and profound experience for both my husband and myself. It was a sad and weary sleep we slept that night.

During coffee and CNN the following morning we caught Rimintons infuriating report. The bomb explosion that preceded the events in the sordid piece of video was not limited to the targeted Humvee in which one soldier was killed and another seriously wounded. The blast had blown the lid off of the tentative quiet that the occupying American military had successfully enforced in the northern province for ten months. It was also damaging to the pro-surge propaganda that is daily pumped out of the Pentagon much like sewage.

The explosive resistance by Iraqi insurgents prompted immediate American retaliation. Five villages were sealed off by the U.S. Calvary and some Iraqi soldiers for weapon searches and intimidation. It was not at all surprising that evidence of the Iraqi resistance was uncovered - cash, some guns, and false I.D.s. After prayers, the sheiks were rounded up and made to stand publicly, like naughty schoolboys, for a good old-fashioned American dressing down.

Enter Lt. Col. M.F., U.S. Army, whose behavior toward the assembled village elders provided at least one answer to that bothersome, oft asked question, "Why Do They Hate Us?" The following words were screamed in the faces of the captive men by the very pissed off Lt. Col. whose control in the region had been undermined by Iraqi citizens who do not want to live in an American colony.

"Every single village tells me it is the next village, it is the next village, it is the next village. Well, that is (EXPLETIVE)!

It is this village, it is now. It is all of you here today.

You WILL make a choice. You WILL make a choice today. If you do not choose MY side, the side of Iraq, the side of the government and the security forces, then you are MY Enemy. Understand that.

The enraged American officer who was representing "We the People" to the Iraqi villagers loudmouthed on to a threatening crescendo...

If you or you or you or you, if you are not supporting us, the security forces, (inaudible), and you are not providing information, then you are on the side of the enemy, and you are my enemy. And the next time I come, I will come hard and I will come strong, and I will come in the middle of the night.

Army Strong, sir?

My husband and I were outraged at Lt. Col. M.F.'s Nazi-like treatment of the aged men who stood, in their own country, before him. We were both deeply angered by and ashamed of his arrogant, authoritarian conduct and his threat to TERRORIZE the villagers at night. The Lt. Col. was obviously never taught to respect elders and seemed to consider FORCE and FEAR effective diplomatic tools.

The officer in question also lacked empathy and understanding for the people whose country had been invaded, destroyed, occupied by alien forces, and was about to have its natural resources plundered. Perhaps Lt. Col. M.F., like George W. Bush and Paul Wolfowitz, expected the Iraqis to be happily compliant with American domination. An outdated, chauvinistic adage that used to masquerade as a protective tactic for women, applies nicely to the fanciful, hegemonic delusions that have powered both the war against Iraq, and the continuing occupation... "If you are raped just lay back and enjoy it."

The villagers, who were rounded up at gunpoint, were forced to watch the public intimidation staged by Lt. Col. M.F., his troops, and a handful of newly trained Iraqi army recruits. Did the Iraqi recruits suffer culture shock as they watched the American officer "dis" the local sheiks?

How did the wives, grandmothers, and teen aged sons and daughters feel that day? Were aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, mothers, and fathers convinced to inform on their family members, their neighbors and to consequently betray their culture and their country?

What of the small children, the grandchildren, Iraq's next generation? What lesson did they learn? Was the American boogie man going to thunder back in the night to break the things that made their houses homes and make their mothers cry? Were the little ones converted to the American Dream by what they had witnessed though innocent eyes?

As we watched the video report that morning, we could both see the rage seething in the eyes of the village sheiks who were scolded and threatened like children by the enemy officer. We wondered, and still do, how many more names Veterans For Peace will have to read at the next Arlington because of Lt Col. M.F. and others of the same ilk.

It is rare, given the tightly controlled, highly propagandized media here in the States, for Americans to see what the Arab world sees, and Iraqis experience every day. Embedded journalists are spoon fed doctored truths and are not invited back if they defer from the "official" spin. The media minders must have viewed the video footage of Lt. Col. M.F. "letting the sheiks have it" in a positive "tough on terror" sort of way - but that is not the way his officerly little tirade came across.

Lt. Col. M.F.'s thuggish, contemptuous conduct toward those whom he was supposedly sent to liberate was Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman, and Unbecoming an American. SHAME. He should be demoted and removed from command, and so should the Commander-in-Chief who lied this country into an illegal war and accepts abusive conduct from the officers who carry out his orders.

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*Note - the initials given for the Lt. Col. are his own. His full name was given in the CNN transcripts.

............... PEACE................
...Kitchen Window Woman...

Cross Posted on The Peace Train