Posted on 06/28/2006 5:33:27 AM PDT by Numbers Guy
A terrible thing happened to two soldiers of the 101st Airborne 12 miles south of Baghdad last week. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25 of Madras, Ore., were tortured and killed by an insurgent group after they were kidnapped during a shootout.
Any human being with an ounce of compassion finds this mindless act to be unforgivable. Perhaps it is impossible for most Americans to understand why such a thing could have happened. But it is not too hard for the Iraqi people to understand. Let's try to go into the mind of an Iraqi man.
In the U.S., we have a very short attention span. What happened even six months ago is old news and already forgotten. Not so with people of the Muslim faith. The warring between the different factions — the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis — goes back centuries. The differences continue today because of those very long memories.
Most Americans have nearly forgotten Abu Ghraib, the infamous prison in Baghdad. The Iraqi people have not — especially the Iraqi male. The U.S. was alerted to this horrendous situation when an article by Seymour Hersh appeared in the New Yorker magazine describing it. CBS News then released the photos and the story on its "Evening News," and it grew from there.
The images of Iraqi men standing nude with bags over their heads or piled into naked pyramids was utterly humiliating to Iraqi men. And the fact that a white woman from the U.S. was pointing fingers at their nudity and laughing was an outrage to all Iraqi citizens, but much more so for the men.
It didn't matter to them if only one American soldier committed these acts of embarrassment and torture, and for President Bush to say publicly that only a few bad apples were responsible for these acts shows a marked ignorance of the Muslim faith.
The soldiers committing these atrocious acts were Americans, and Iraqi men — in their humiliation and anger — did not distinguish between their rank or gender. They did not see just a "handful" of perpetrators. They saw the evil in all American soldiers. The most disgusting acts that could be dreamed up by a conquering army to humiliate a defeated people had just occurred at Abu Ghraib.
To the Iraqi people, it was like watching an American soldier pour salt into an open and bleeding wound. It was as bad as, or worse than, raping an Iraqi mother in front of her husband and children. The number of American soldiers who participated in these acts was not important to the average Iraqi. If one is guilty, all are guilty —and that is the way it played out to them.
An American should know the Quran and try to understand that all people on this planet do not think or act as Americans do. Hadn't they noticed that the devout Muslim women covered themselves from the top of their heads to their feet? Didn't that give them a clue that the body is sacred?
Now recall those pictures of Iraqi men standing naked while Americans laughed and joked about their nudity. Could this have been worse or equal to forcing them to eat pork?
By no means am I trying to make excuses for the way Menchaca and Tucker were tortured and killed. I merely want to point out the underlying hatred and unvarnished anger that still permeates the minds of so many Iraqi men and women. Revenge, no matter how horrible, is justifiable in the minds of those seeking it.
Senators such as John McCain warned that if the treatment of enemy prisoners did not improve and if the United States did not start to abide by the rules of the Geneva Convention, captured American soldiers could be treated in the same fashion or worse.
The Iraqi people do not fear life, and they certainly do not fear death. This is a concept that is not easily grasped by the Western mind. For centuries, the colonists — and then U.S. Army — fought American Indians with their soldiers continuously amazed at the utter lack of fear shown by the Indian fighters. It was the total disregard for death that made the Indians such ferocious fighters.
The U.S. Army is considered the invader, and no matter the reasons for being in Iraq, they are still the enemy. So many of the mindless and humiliating actions carried out against the Iraqi population by that army have become battle cries of hatred and revenge by the Muslims.
Abu Ghraib was an embarrassment to the U.S., but it was a case of total humiliation and degradation to not only the Iraqi people, but to all Muslims throughout the Middle East. By desecrating the bodies of the Iraqi prisoners, the American soldiers spit on the Holy Scriptures of Islam. And while the terrible photos of the Iraqi prisoners disappeared from the screens of American television, they played over and over on Arab television.
When the insurgents posted the news of the deaths of the two Americans on the Internet, they were referred to as "crusaders." This word means little to most Americans, but it means everything to Islam.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is president of the Native American Journalists Foundation Inc. He can be reached via e-mail at najournalists@rushmore.com.
(c) 2006, Tim Giago. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Yeah, right
and what knowledge does he have of the muslim mind?? It's not Iraqi, it's muslim. He's off on a faulty premise already.
Hmm. Strange. I know I remember at least as far back as September 11, 2001.
Matter of fact, I remember the Munich Olympics.
Now, I'm sorry... I forgot what your point was.
The muslim Rules of Behavior (modified from Toddler Rules of Behavior)
1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must NEVER appear to be yours in anyway.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, it is mine.
8. If I saw it first, it's mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it's broken, it's yours.
What's an IRAQ? Who are you people? What am I doing here?
I just WISH they had "tortured" them like in Abu Gharaib
I wish they had just put panties on their heads, put leashes on them and took pictures, but let them live. How I wish that was all they'd done!
The Islamofascists are still upset about the Crusades and that was nearly 2000 years ago. Talk about holding a grudge. Sometimes a short attention span can be a good thing, relatively speaking.
People with no awareness of middle eastern history are ill-equipped to educate anybody.
That. Was. The. Whole. Point. You. Fool!
The Arab fascists in Iraq and elsewhere needed to see exactly where their behavior was going to lead them. Any Arab male who hates the US for seeing Saddam's minions treated that way was never going to be an ally of ours in the first place.
"The warring between the different factions ...goes back centuries. The differences continue today because of those very long memories."
Well it's less about literal memory than cultural mechanisms like blood feuds and notions of honor or dignity, continually measuring those qualities in one's clan, assuring them for yourself and denying them to the tribe's ancient "enemy".
It's all quite primitive, really.
Here is my interpretation of the Iraqi'a Man's Mind, he adheres to a book, the Quran that is like satan's bible, he is so lacking in masculinity that he treats women like dirt, he has no problem using women and children as shields because he is a coward, he has absolutely no honor, although he believes he does because he thinks it manly to go to a public place with a bomb belt on and blow up innocent people. He is basically always offended by something so therefore he feels he can kill you. I am sick to death of having to tread lightly so not to offend these maniacs. It's a two way street and if they don't get it through their thick skulls then they're just spinning their wheels, the rest of us are over their death cult.
Our enemies need less understanding and more killing. That is how you win wars.
The writer is the one with a short memory. Islamic fanatics tortured and mutilated captives long before Abu Ghraib. Blame America first.
the condescension and arrogance in this essay is absolutely demeaning and disgusting to every American. the implication is that the muslim religion is somehow HOLIER than any Christian or Jewish religious beliefs.
underlying this entire essay is the assumption that muslims have a right to get more upset about their bodies than American Christians do. why? because muslim faith is more valid or somehow more spiritual than the western spirituality.
bullsh$t. i'm sorry but BULLSH$T.
If I was one of the vast majority of Iraqi men who are quite civilized, I'd be pretty d*mn pissed at this sloppy journalist lumping me in with terrorists who torture and behead people. It was "Iraqi men" who told our forces where the bodies were and warned them about the booby traps.
Didn't this guy write a big, long article about how Saddam was killing 5,000 per month by throwing them off buildings, decapitation, wood chippers, etc? No?
This mush; passing for thoughtful discourse. . .goes beyond insult. . .
These Libs worry about 'pantiesontheheads' of prisoners. . .while their own intellectual choices are no more than a shared abomination.
What these Libs do - what they spew. . .for the American public; so captured by the MSM. . . is far worse than what our soldiers did to the 'captured' at AbuGhraib. . .
Giago has a column that appears regularly in The St. Paul Pioneer Press. This is a typical America-bashing article by him. In fact every column I've ever read by him going back more than a decade is an America-bashing one. He hates everything about America and blames the U.S. for all the world's problems. A male version of Molly Ivins.
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