Hadji girl.

I know, I know, it's pointless to read Michelle Malkin, she's a low-grade bigot spouting dullwitted nationalist boilerplate who's making a killing as a 'pundit' and blogger since her internment-camp scholarship was completely discredited. Yes, yes. I should know better.

Still, if you're following the 'Hadji girl' mini-controversy - and I'm not sure you should bother with that, frankly - her post on it is interesting in a car-wreck way. The mendacity and thuggish racism on display are really striking. It's not analysis or reason, just reflexive hatred, which is a bit boring, except insofar as she shares that reaction with many, many, many, many, many Americans. That's why you can't simply ignore Malkin, Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al. They actually speak for a large number of your countrymen.

What's semi-interesting about the case is that this Marine doesn't strike me as terribly unique, judging from the many accounts of Marine life that have come down over the years, yet the generic xenophobic Right's reaction is to treat every such case as an exception, as either a 'bad apple' or a noble misunderstood soul persecuted by the rampaging Left. The song's sickening, but we shouldn't pretend that shit like it doesn't get said everyday, practically everywhere, by allegedly (and arguably) quite humane individuals. Hey, if I had to kill people all day because some idiot in Washington told me to, yet I was bound by a pathological honor code keeping my behaviour barely in check, I'd blow off steam by making sick jokes too. But as Sullivan says, it's hard to understand people who refuse to see (or in any case admit) what's awful about these lyrics:

She wanted me to meet her family But I, well, I couldn't figure out how to say no. Cause I don't speak Arabic. So, she took me down an old dirt trail. And she pulled up to a side shanty And she threw open the door and I hit the floor. Cause her brother and her father shouted

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah

So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little fuckers to eternity.

See the parts I've italicized there? Are those noble sentiments? Are those the words of a good soul in a bad situation trying to make sense of the world? Of a smart, capable leader? Put another way: are pride-in-ignorance and naked bloodlust representative of our nation's attitude toward the war, toward retributive violence, toward Iraqis? Not in general, no they're not. But I think these words speak for a frighteningly large number of people. And maybe this is just a comment about the dehumanizing nature of war - in which case jingoist idiots praising war as noble and necessary might do well to mark their own pleasure at what's happened to this boy. But maybe it's a comment on something else in our national character.

I don't think the Marine should be punished. Absolutely not.

But I think he should be ashamed of the ignorance and callousness of those words. As should his brethren and fellow Americans.

I certainly am.

Comments

[agi]

re: That's why you can't simply ignore Malkin, Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al. They actually speak for a large number of your countrymen.

Pharyngula had a nice post on this very subject.