Psyche, Science, and Society

American troops shoot, wound Iraqi hero

April 22nd, 2007

A paragraph in a recent New York Times article illuminates, without comment or emphasis, the role of American troops in Iraq:

“I saw a flash,” he said. “Then I jumped out of my car. I remember the doors were blown off. Shukriya and Adnan stayed in the car.” His family members say he has asked repeatedly for his cousin and aunt. They will wait until he is stronger to tell him his passengers were killed in the explosion.

In many countries, Rahim Kareem Himet would be lauded as a hero. In Iraq, he lies in a hospital bed with three bullet wounds. Mr. Himet was visiting a friend near Sadriya when the car bomb exploded. He ran to the scene with dozens of other passersby.

“I dragged the wounded away from the fire, I put them on handcarts and pushed them away from the scene,” he says, his account confirmed by another patient wounded in the attack. “I found a minibus nearby with no driver, we put 10 wounded in the back and I began to drive them to the hospital.”

As he neared the Babasher police station, about 100 yards from the blast site, soldiers that Mr. Himet says were Americans opened fire. He was wounded and crashed the bus in front of the police station. Iraqi soldiers were afraid to rescue him, he says, for fear the nervous American soldiers would shoot them, too. Bleeding badly, he was eventually taken to the hospital with the other victims he had tried to save.

US troops are too scared to help anyone. The idea that they can rescue the country they have done so much to destroy is ludicrous. Absent any real comprehensible mission, their one goal is, understandably, to get home alive. anyone who gets in the way, or even appears to do so, is in danger. Next time you hear how US troops have to stay in order to prevent Iraq descending into chaos, think of Rahim Kareem Himet.

Entry Filed under: Iraq