I get nervous whenever the Western World becomes morally indignant about the actions of a Middle-Eastern government. It usually means that we’re doing or have recently done the same thing.
When Iran banned haircuts, we banned baggy pants. They want nukes. We already have them. Their religious zealots censor rap because it’s a corrupting influence and I remember Tipper Gore. But, when Saudi Arabia punished a rape victim with 200 lashes, I figured we were safe. We would never do something like that.
I was wrong.
Jamie Leigh Jones, a 22 year old Halliburton employee, claims that she was gang raped by co-workers in Baghdad. Upon hearing about it, the company locked her in a shipping container and threatened her job. The men who did this, whether they’re guilty or innocent, cannot be prosecuted. They’re contractors in a distant land.
Men who have power and lack law are a frightening thing.
This is what they did to one of their own. A white woman. A Texan. It’s fairly easy to picture what they’re doing to the locals. Those women are already dehumanized by being members of a different culture and speaking a foreign gibberish. They’re already an enemy who needs to be taught a lesson. It’s an easy thing.
It’d probably start with catcalls. Nothing worse than what you’d hear at Mardi Gras. The men are nervous. No one wants to look like a pussy. Each one of them wants to be one of the boys, each one of them goads the others a bit further. A hundred beer soaked brags must be made good upon. She’s scared. They like that. It makes them less afraid. Like a shark bumping a swimmer, one of them grabs her by the shoulder.
“Hey baby, where ya goin’?”
She says something none can understand. Knocks his hand away. Embarrassed, the guy reacts before he thinks. He hits her. Harder than he wanted to. She makes noise, yelling in that fucked up language. They know they’ve done the wrong thing. Now they don’t want to get caught. But they can’t run. Things happen suddenly.
She’s dragged to the back of a van and taught a lesson by a bunch of guys who should be eating nachos and watching football. A bunch of guys whose morality is best left untested. They all have a go.
And the next time it gets a bit easier. The next time, maybe one of these guys is training a new group when the same woman walks by. Maybe it’s a different one. Who knows? Who cares? These sand-niggers all look the same anyway.
But having committed an atrocity, this group leader has to make it normal. He thinks that’d justify it. So he drags others into the morass of his guilt. It’s easy to do. Everyone just wants to be one of the boys. It stops being a bad thing. Starts being fun. “Look, Bob can’t get a hard-on. What a faggot.” Laughter.
Pretty soon, some late-night talk turns to Jamie Leigh Jones. You know her. She’s that bitch who’s always mouthing off. Someone oughta put that cunt in her place. So they do. And the bosses cover it up. The people back home wouldn’t understand.
This isn’t what war does. This is just what war is.
It’s pack-hunting predators unchecked by rules and sanctioned by authority. The masters cry havoc and let the dogs slip their chains. And the most basic packs are formed by race and sex. This is a stupid, brutal and ugly business. These things happen in war, because this is war. That’s why you try to avoid it.
As for Jamie Leigh Jones: She slept with dogs and woke up with fleas. She can complain all she wants. But she shouldn’t expect anyone to do anything about it.
2 comments
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Ryan Oakley
December 11, 2007 at 8:18 pm (UTC -5)
I think the worst lie we ever told ourselves – worst than the WMD thing – is that, in spite of not just centuries but thousands of years of evidence, wars can be nice, safe, sanitized little outings where no one gets hurt.
If you’re not willing to rape all the women, blow up all the hospitals and shoot the little children, you’re not willing to go to war. This whole idea that you can fight one without hurting civilians is not just dangerous and insane, it also makes the decision to fight too appealing and easy.
dashofpanache
December 11, 2007 at 3:49 pm (UTC -5)
Good post- it’s scary to think of the shit that men will do when freed from the mores of society. Or even when in society, the sheer hypocrisy that ensues. Critical thinking FTW!
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June 15, 2008 at 2:52 pm (UTC -5)
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