From an artice by Paul McGeough, the highly respected former editor of "The Sydney Morning Herald", probabaly the most independent and trusted newspaper in Australia.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/12/1081621847374.html
This begs the questions: -
- do the GIs know why they are there in Iraq?
- how disciplined are they?
- or are they terrified and out of control?
Sadeer, my driver in Baghdad, is leaning the same way.
When he arrived at the Palestine Hotel yesterday he was limping; the leg of his jeans was soaked in blood. The cut was small and we were able to bandage it, but George Bush had lost another Iraqi friend.
Sadeer, a 28-year-old Shiite, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Americans and he takes his life in his hands by working for me. Iraqis are being executed just for being in the company of Westerners.
But his encounter with a bullying US soldier, who roughed him up as he came through the security cordon around the hotel, has pushed him into the nationalist Iraqi camp.
When the GI challenged him, Sadeer tried to explain in his limited English that he entered the hotel routinely. But he was barked at, shoved away and then belted on the foot with a rifle. He used to slow in traffic to greet the US troops. Now he has turned: "Americans bad for Iraq - too many problems."
Leaving the hotel on foot, we had to go through the same streets to get to his car. I tried to explain our movements to the officer in charge of a US tank unit, but we were greeted with a stream of invective.
As I thanked the officer for his civility and moved on, one of his men fell in beside me, mumbling. Asked to repeat himself, he exploded: "Don't you f---in' eyeball me."
Nodding to his officer and raising his weapon, he shrieked: "He has rank to lose. I don't. I'll take you out quick as a flash, motherf---er!"
Nice!
If these soldiers can be so polite to a white australian ally, can you imagine how they are to the brownskinned, Iraqis?
While I am sure all the soldiers are not like these fellows, it only takes one to ruin the good work done by the other 99 or 999 or 9999.