Cultural Gulf Separates Forces, Iraqis
“I say we just — nuke this place and make it into a parking lot,” seethed Lance Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan.
U.S. forces invading this country make frequent reference to “nuking” Iraqis, whom they call “ragheads” and “camel jockeys,” often without appearing to distinguish between civilians and enemy forces. The extent to which such remarks are part of the daily vernacular underscores the cultural and political challenges the United States faces as it becomes a major military presence in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Asked later about his remark, Eman said he hadn’t sincerely wished to drop a nuclear bomb on the people he was sent to liberate from Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. “I was frustrated and tired,” he said. “I don’t wish nukes on anybody, because anything we throw like that at somebody could come back at us.”
See kids? That’s why you don’t want to nuke other people. They might fight back. Speaking of kids:
“Raghead, raghead, can’t you see? This old war ain’t — to me,” sang Lance Cpl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky., sweat running down his face in rivulets as he dug a fighting trench one recent afternoon under a blazing sun.
Asked whom he considered a raghead, Akins said: “Anybody who actively opposes the United States of America’s way … If a little kid actively opposes my way of life, I’d call him a raghead, too.”
As for non-hostile Iraqis, “I think they can be brought up intellectually, but it’ll take some work because they’re still in the Stone Age,” Akins said. He appeared startled to hear that Iraqis are descendants of ancient Mesopotamia, a thriving civilization that created the world’s first known system of writing and body of law, and that until the havoc of Hussein’s regime, Iraq also enjoyed a substantial and highly educated middle class.