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CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS
Peter Kwong
gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the
"millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes
to one
of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on
the planet. How China's
leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn
on What's wrong with the U.S. left.
They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies
about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with
a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq.
John Ross
takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
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Did you see her and want her so bad,
that young, forbidden fruit? Did she once smile nervously at
the checkpoint, and you thought it was just for you? Did you
come on strong the next time around, flash a little money maybe,
or lay a syrupy line on her that you got from a phrasebook? What
did she do--recoil? Look away? Look disgusted? Look blank? What
did she do to bring on the big hurt from a big, tough man like
you?
So you planned it all out.
You cased the house, you reconnoitred. You got your buddies in
on it--or were they in from the start, did they make a play too,
were they too turned away by this haughty Arab bitch, this piece
of trash from a shitheap town in a shitheap country filled with
nothing but lazy, lying, murdering towelheads? Somebody like
that thinks they're too good to give it up to you?
You liberated her goddamned country, for Christ's sake, and now
she won't even put out? That dog won't hunt. Hell no. You and
your pals had to teach her a lesson. You had the power, you had
the guns, you were Americans; who was going to stop you?
So you set up the mission.
You knew how to do it. How many houses had you raided before?
Dozens, hundreds--who the hell knows? Who the hell cares? You
went in and got her, you did what you wanted to her. You shoved
the other hajjis into the next room, put a gun on them, then
got down to business. Did your buds take a turn? Everybody get
a taste? Or maybe you'd already ruined her before they got a
chance--beat her, tore her, pounded her into goo? Who the hell
knows? Who the hell cares? At some point, she just wasn't worth
it anymore. No fight left in her. Laid there like a limp rag.
Passed out maybe.
So you took out your gun, you
took out your power, you took out the thing that makes you an
American--a real person, a human being --- instead of a walking
piece of shit like everyone else in that godforsaken hellhole
of a country, you took it out and you shot her in the head. One
shot, clean kill. Did you say anything? Crack a joke? "Not
tonight, honey, I've got a headache." Or did you just stand
there and curse her, puking your self-righteous rage all over
her dead body?
Who took charge after that?
Was it you, or one of the others? It all started moving so fast,
like a dream had been broken--or maybe this was the dream?
Maybe it was all a dream, the whole fucking thing, from
day one, all of it nothing, happening to nobody, going on nowhere,
never. But the smell was real, you couldn't get away from it,
that wet smell, meat and guts in a slime of blood. It filled
your nose, filled up your whole head behind your face, it lined
your throat, coated your skin. And if the smell was real, then
the whole thing.
Move, fast, now! The hajjis
in the other room: no witnesses, goddamn it! Who's this, the
mother? Head shot, head shot, down. Who's this old bastard? Father,
brother? Who cares? Head shot, head shot, in the face, down.
And what's this? Oh for Christ's sake, how old is she?
Six? Seven? Eight? What are you going to do, wait till she grows
up and comes looking for your ass? Catch her, goddamn it, just
shoot, shoot! Down.
Now burn the other one. Yeah,
the bitch in the other room. Set her on fire and get the hell
out. Report terrorist activity. The Sunni bastards in the area.
Secure the perimeter. Get your fucking story straight and keep
your fucking mouth shut. We're home free. Home free.
***
Is that how it went down? Does
it still feel good? They got two of your brothers from the same
platoon later, chopped off their heads. Reckon that was payback?
Now the squealers are coming out. It's in the goddamned papers.
The brass are going to throw you to the dogs. They can
be big men, they can rape whole countries, kill tens of
thousands -- but just let some grunt try to get a little on the
retail side, and all hell breaks loose. It just ain't fair.
Well, buddy, what can we say?
You should have your fun last year, when there wasn't an election.
Nobody would have paid a blind bit of notice. And you should
have called in an airstrike, not that half-assed burning job--nothing
buries evidence like a 500-pound bomb.
The only thing now is to get
a good military lawyer. The ones they got working for those Gitmo
goobers seem like top-notch shysters--they just beat Bush at
the Supreme Court, so try to get one of them. Then just hunker
down. If you can string it out long enough, Bush's media brigades
can start working the refs for you, muddying the waters, smearing
your accusers, providing the proper context, invoking 9/11. (And
speaking of 9/11, isn't that what it's really all about? Isn't
that what you were really doing when you raped that girl
and shot her in the head and burned her body and killed her family--defending
our country from those who attacked us on that tragic day? What
you did was justice, damn it, not a crime! Just like the
whole war.) Meanwhile, Rummy will pull the insider strings to
water things down to a wrist-slap somewhere along the line--after
the elections.
So don't sweat it, brother.
You and your pals might be home free yet.
UPDATE: "Ex-GI
Charged in Slaying of 4 and Rape in Iraq" -- NY Times
Uh-oh. Too late for at least
one of the marauders; he was already de-mobbed, and is now in
the hands of civilian prosecutors. Uncle Rummy's gonna have to
cut you loose, compadre. Sure, he's signed direct orders for
the deaths of thousands of civilians every bit as innocent as
that family you massacred -- but then, he's an Ivy League man,
a corporate chieftain, a respected public servant, and you are
just another hick from the sticks. Let this be a lesson to all
the cannon fodder out there: don't get above your raising, don't
emulate your betters. Law is for the lowly, not the great and
good.
Excerpt from the NYT: Federal prosecutors said today that
an American soldier killed an Iraqi man, two women and a little
girl in their home the night of March 12 after the soldier and
his comrades plotted to rape one of the women while drinking
at a traffic checkpoint a short distance away. The prosecutors
charged the suspect, Steven D. Green, 21, with shooting the four
victims to death. They said he and others raped one of the women...
Prosecutors said the defendant
was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder"
before the March 12 incident came to light. An affidavit filed
in connection with the charges raises the possibility that others
will be charged, since the document states that "members"
of the 101st Airborne Division killed the Iraqis and that "the
same individuals" raped and killed one of the women. The
others were not identified by name.
The affidavit, by an F.B.I.
special agent, Gregor J. Ahlers, said details of the crime emerged
during a "combat stress debriefing" on June 20. Private
Green and at least three others planned the rape and told another
soldier to monitor the radio while they went to the house near
Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, according to the affidavit. Some
of the participants changed out of their uniforms before going
to the house and had blood on their clothes when they returned,
the affidavit said.
After the murder-and-rape rampage,
the affidavit states, the soldiers burned their clothes and told
the comrade who had been left to monitor the radio that "this
is never to be discussed again."
Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He writes
weekly column for The Moscow Times and is a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at
www.chris-floyd.com.
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