Showing them who's boss in Iraq

``Outrage'' in Iraq over harsh treatment of an assembly member by US troop at checkpoint

Employing Israeli methodology, the US military has from the beginning of the invasion made its cordons and road checkpoints places of horror for the Iraqi population. Now a member of the newly-elected assembly has been given a taste of American freedom:

U.S. troop's treatment of assembly member sparks outrage in Iraq

By Dogen Hannah
Knight Ridder Newspapers

An outraged Iraqi National Assembly demanded an apology from the U.S. government Tuesday for the rough treatment one assembly member said he received from an American soldier at a military checkpoint....[Fattah] Al-Sheikh was shaken and crying as he struggled to tell the assembly that a U.S. soldier had manhandled him. The incident occurred at a checkpoint leading into the heavily fortified Green Zone, the central Baghdad compound where the assembly meets, he said.

"I was dragged to the ground," said al-Sheikh, a member of a small party sympathetic to rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "There were cars beside mine at the checkpoint, but I was the only one who paid this price."

Al-Sheikh and witnesses said a soldier kicked his car, pulled him from the vehicle, grabbed him by the neck and handcuffed him. When he protested that he was a member of the assembly, a soldier scoffed at the group, al-Sheikh said.

What I find most troubling in these stories is the sense of impunity and superiority that is pervasive in the way America conducts itself in Iraq. Too many US troops behave with contempt towards the Iraqi people, belittling Iraqi customs and behavior, using derisive terms like ``Hadji'', implying that every Iraqi is a terrorist and Islam is a damned religion -- following the leadership of General Boykin.

Does America have any chance of redemption for its crimes in Iraq? These kind of incidents and ones much worse that happen to ordinary Iraqis every day only dig the hole that much deeper. The earliest this question will be answered is decades from now after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and most of us are long dead.