Of Marines and Hadjis

Reports continue to trickle in. First there was Haditha. Then more reports of massacres in different Iraqi cities. And in spite of all the spinning and posturing it's obvious civilian life doesn't mean much to the U.S. military. Not Iraqi civilian life.

When Zarqawi was allegedly killed (there are many possibilities beyond the official story but I don't want to get into them now), women and children also died. They are a mere footnote to the gloating of American officials over this "victory in the war on terror." They are not American, not Christian, not white. Their lives don't matter.

Reports are coming in of an internet video in which a Marine boasts, while others cheer, of his murder of Iraqi girls. They are the enemy. They don't matter.

U.S. soldiers refer to Iraqi Muslims as "hadjis." This terms of respect, referring to one who has completed the difficult ritual of hajj, has become a term of insult. Yet another example of the perversion of the official American mindset when it comes to Muslims.

I am a native-born American citizen and I expect to be treated with dignity and respect. I am also a Muslim, and often I wonder how long it will be before Muslims in this country are treated with the same level of disrespect shown Muslims in other countries--by the U.S. military and their Zionist allies.

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Nice words. And it shouldn't stop there. How can the American government justify the murder of Iraqi civilians and yet defend the lives of Americans? How can fundamentalist Christians insist on imposing their worldview on the rest of us? And why is it that white skin is still more highly valued? (I'm white, and sometimes ashamed of it.)

A hadji is someone who deserves respect. A civilian is someone who deserves to live. And peace does not come from waging war.