The officer queries, “Soldier, you want to take a human ear back to the United States?”

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=214&page=20

Book Reviews by Manju Gupta

Agony of a US soldier in Iraq

Joshua Key and Lawrence Hill: The Deserter’s Tale, Roli Books, pp 236, Rs 395.00

<snip>Joshua was stationed in Colorado when he was ordered to go to Iraq, a war zone, under the belief that “somebody had to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction”; that “somebody had to depose the evil tyrant Saddam Hussein”; that “somebody had to make the world safe from terrorists who had overtaken Iraq and were threatening our lives”. He was brainwashed into believing the Iraqi men, women and children were “sand niggers, ragheads, habibs, hajjis and, most of all, terrorists.”

In this book Joshua describes his first few raids on the houses of Iraqis with none of them offering any resistance—“Even though not one person tried to shoot us or made any effort to hurt us, it was common for American soldiers to beat up the civilians.” He continues, “At least every two or three days during my time in Iraq, I saw our soldiers kicking Iraqi civilians in the ribs and punching their faces until blood ran from their noses, mouths or eyebrows.”

Narrating an incident at Fallujah, Joshua says, that one day, all of a sudden he felt the ground under his feet shaking. He found that a trigger-happy American soldier had started shooting for fun and everybody else (the other soldiers) had joined in. He suddenly saw “about a dozen body bags being carried away and was told that the victims were all Iraqi civilians.” He adds, “The people of Fallujah were so accustomed to bullets flying that some of them walked about oblivious to the dangers.”

Joshua befriends a poor seven-year old Iraqi girl who comes every time she sees him, asking, “Mister, food!” He gives her whatever he has and one day he sees her shot down by his fellowmen for no fault of hers. He writes, “Her death haunts me to this day. I am trying to learn to live with it!”

[madokie]

1. its wrong what is being asked of our soldiers

putting them in a kill to live situation is wrong wrong wrong. we need so bad some leadership and we're just flat assed not getting any, neither from the white house not the congress. Please congress critters do what is right and stop this madness, even if for one day give these poor Iraqi's a moment of peace. I guess that is too much to ask of the well fed warm in their madness critters, huh

take away a persons ability to see good and you have an enemy for life, thats what we're doing in the middle east today