I Thought I Would Die of Embarrassment

[ed. - Jackie Spinner of the Washington Post covers the most poignant story to arise from the Iraq quagmire: Iraqi resistors humiliated into  militant rage, as U.S. soldiers search their girlymag stashes. Right in front of their moms. Our Washington correspondent did some digging in a K Street dumpster and found more tragic stories of embarrassment cut from the original story. You can find more in-depth analysis at LGF and Tim Blair.]

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Mustafa, 26, a college graduate with a degree in Psychology, seems an unlikely candidate for the Iraqi resistance. All that changed one afternoon when US soldiers raided the modest home he shares with his mother in Mosul.

"The soldiers, they are to be coming into the house without the knocking," he recalls. "I was in the basement, innocently to IM some of the friends on the AOL Messenger, as for not to listen to Mother always for complaining about the job-seekings."

After his mother allowed soldiers to search his room, a detachment of Marines soon found one of Mustafa's dreaded secrets: his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Underoos.

"It began with the laughings," he recalls tearfully. "Then they began to toss the Underoos from crusader to crusader, and to interrogate about the, how you say, 'skidmarks.'" 

By the time the soldiers had left, the devastating experience had taken its toll. After slapping his mother uncontrollably, Mustafa had vowed to join the resistance to exact revenge on the Americans.

"I will behead the Infidels, and show the world that they are the ones with the humorous underpants, not me," he says, angrily.

**************************
Tales of embarrassment at the hands of American military forces abound in the capital city of Baghdad. Faisal, 19, recounts an episode last September as US Army troops were distributing food in the impoverished Sadr City section.

"I was with my mother for to help get the flour, and there were many of the beautiful neighborhood girls around," he says. "I am then smell the bad gas smell. I say to a crusader, 'I think I am smelling the passing of wind!'"

The callous response of an American soldier would eventually create another  enemy inside this war-ravaged country.

"A crusader point to me and say, 'he who is to be smelt it, is one who dealt it!'" says Faisal, his eyes fiery with indignation.

After suffering through a withering crescendo of giggles, Faisal began slapping his mother uncontrollably.

Now a senior deputy to militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Faisal says the false fart charges radicalized him to fight against occupation.

"The Americans are Devils!" says Faisal. "They will taste death, as will their giggling collaborator girls, like Fatima!"   

**************************
Perhaps no single Iraqi has suffered a greater humiliation at the hands of the US Military than Iqtaab Hassan. As a pudgy, socially inept teenager, Hassan was forced last year to stand helplessly by as US Special Forces searched his bedroom in a middle-class area of Baghdad. What they found would change his life forever. 

Rifling through his D&D guidebooks and science fiction action figures, an Army Ranger located a home made videotape. On it: Iqtaab Hassan spastically performing a lightsaber fight from Star Wars.

Hasaan's self-taped performance  was never meant for public consumption, but soon it would be spread across US military computer networks, and later the Internet. The incident so traumatized Hassan that it would be an entire week until he could muster the nerve to slap his mother.

Today Hassan, reborn as "Mohammed al-Vader,"  has formed his own splinter cell to violently resist American occupation, and offers an apocryphal warning.

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed, occupiers," he says darkly. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

Comments

[Gerald Connor]

I read both pieces. Which is the story and which is the parody?

Not wo worry about this fellow strapping on a suicide belt. If he does, I'll console the griveing mother by going over there, not working and slapping the shit out of her.

[JJ]

The facts as I know them.
1. What these soldiers did, if they did it, was silly, not happy yay this was great good or horrific you must die now bad.
2. The looney left who writes and eats this BS up as proof that America is evil or the war is going downhill is why I, and every other southern democrat I know either votes R or doesn't vote at all. (I registered as a Republican recently because the D just no longer fits and embarrases me)
3. IF the left knew anything at all about winning hearts and minds and respecting other's religion, they wouldn't have lost the south (the House, Senate, and Whitehouse along with it too)
4. This parody is hilariously funny.

[TomB]

"And the fake email is required because on a good day, you RWNs think you've "won" when you sign up commenters like me for spam, and on a bad day, you track me down and send out death threats and dish out other harrassment over my "treachery"."

Oh, brother.

Get a grip, Nickey. You have WAY too high an opinion of yourself.

Besides, we nasty neocons only do that to leftys who actually make a good point.

[Captain Holly]

Nick, my original point still stands.

There is no way, no FRIGGIN' way, that a liberal WaPo reporter would go out to some rural county in Red USA and do a puff piece on an aggrieved Bible-thumper who had his secret porno stash outed by the cops in front of his mother. Even if the cops had purposely placed the Bible in the middle of it.

And she sure as hell wouldn't write a single sympathetic word about him if he bad-mouthed Jews and foreigners during the interview.

In my opinion, the ONLY reason why she did this was to discredit the US war effort. And the ONLY reason why she wants to discredit the US is that George Bush is a Republican.

[Deb S.]

I'd put 5 bucks on the WaPo story being complete fabrication. MSM being rather redundant, afterall.

[Bob in Feenicks]

Just wondering:

If they put the Koran in a jar of urine, would it be art?

[Persnickety]

Whoa, there. Slow down, Nick & joe.

I'd put 5 bucks on the truth being closer to this:

The troops get a tip that some guy has some documents of a nefarious nature. They raid the house, expecting to find lists of terrorists or something. Instead, all they find is mild porn - 'bad' from a strict Islamist standpoint no doubt, but not a security threat from the American point of view.

Chuckling with relief and quite possibly enjoying the views (which for PR purposes they probably haven't had much of while in country), they look the docs over to make sure it's just porn and toss it on the bed when they're done. Yeah, they probably flipped through the Koran and tossed that over too.

Big deal.

Do you honestly think troops have the time to go about invading houses just for porn? Whaddareya thinking?

& the libs swallow it hook, line and sinker - you just know it was all deliberate and a conspiracy and EEEEEEKKKKK!

Do you have to be so darn eager to hate?

[Nick Navel]

"ignore that he beat his own mother" -- ad hominem tu quoque. Look it up.

No one said anything in defense of the mom-beating Iraqi. Whether any of us in Blogland responds to his anger management issues will make not one bit of difference in the war, whereas the response of the soldiers, who are there in real life in the position of maintaining security and getting information without losing hearts & minds, is critical. Pretending otherwise are iowahawk and the commenters who dismiss the WaPo article.

The soldiers couldn't get information out of the guy, so they decided to humiliate him and disrespect his religion, in our names. Over a freakin' pr0n stash? Talk about hypocrisy. And to what end? Two Wrongs Make A Right? For the Right, that's what they teach you on the first day. If you accept that the soldiers might've done what was reported, then they blew it, and maybe pushed some unstable nutjob over the edge sooner rather than later. The sad part is, if he or someone he's told this story to ends up driving a truck full of explosives into the vicinity of iowahawk's niece and nephew, to me it'll prove my point, and to you it'll just prove yours. Nothing gained, and a lot of lives lost. Why should I be proud of and "support" the troops who do this kind of stuff? IMO if they aren't doing their jobs, then they deserve whatever they get.

As for this post "attracting" LLs, I can't speak for anyone else, but I stumbled across this just because it is showing up on blogdex.net. It was purely a "huh, wonder what this is about" moment. Like you, I'm just bored and have decided to waste time by responding to some dumb post from someone who is only half as clever and funny as he thinks he is (don't bother pointing out the irony).

And the fake email is required because on a good day, you RWNs think you've "won" when you sign up commenters like me for spam, and on a bad day, you track me down and send out death threats and dish out other harrassment over my "treachery". Self-parody, indeed.

[David Gillies]

Curiously, when my mother discovered my teenage stash of girlie mags, it never even occurred to me to smack her about. It all seems so obvious in retrospect.

On a more serious note, blasphemy always struck me as being a little absurd. If your God is so feeble that he can't stand a bit of mockery, then he deserves a wedgie.

[Professor Poopyhead]

I think one thing many are missing is the utter inaneness of the original article. Spinner just swallowed this story from this Iraqi as true without question. No chance that Mustafa might have embellished the story just a bit, Ms. Spinner? No chance that to relieve his embarassment (and protect his standing with Muslim fundamentalists) that he may have sought to deflect the story away from his possession and use of his porno stash and towards the "evil" soldiers who found it? No even just a little bit possible that what Mustafa said happened never really happened. Geez...let's not consider the possibilities....it must be true since he is an "oppressed" Iraqi. I somehow think that at coffee shops around Baghdad there is much disdainful laughter about poor Mustafa and his girlie mags. (p.s. Is this really representative of the standards of a Berkeley journalism grad?)

[rox_publius]

joe's a poopyhead

[iowahawk]

Well, "a lot" is relative. Two were from the same IP address in Charlotte, NC; one standard retarded lefty boilerplate, followed by a gay-bashing 'reply' under a different fake name/email. Banned, deleted.

A friendly note to all: this is a self-funded Happy Good Time site, not an open forum for humorless fuckheads. If you want to bash/rant/spew, go find another blog that cares what you think. Otherwise, I can turn off all comments with a button click. No skin off my nose.

[michelle]

Iowahawk, you seem to have attracted a lot of LLLs with this post. It's such a weak pathetic non-story in the first place. I am amazed any of the looney left can work up indignation at all. Who was it over at NR who said the Left parodies itself? This is a perfect example. Before just now I couldn't have imagined the LLL comments above coming out of this woman-beating, self-centered jerk's actions. Yet another example of LLL hypocrisy-ignore that he beat his mother, ignore that he was embarrassed by HIS OWN porno being in the proximity of a book he claims to hold holy, and find yet another way to attack the U.S. How long before the EU picks up your post and publishes it as more examples of Evil Americans driving! young Iraquis to "insurgency"? Freakin' Idiots.

[iowahawk]

Frank J: I would bear your love child if I were gay, and had a uterus.

[iowahawk]

"Say what you will; there was nothing gained by what the soldiers did."

Other than a couple of copies of the Fatima's Secret Catalog. And by "what the soldiers did," I'm assuming you mean "what an anonymous Baathist monkey-spanker claimed to a WaPo reporterette."

"It was yet another needless, useless, credibility-damaging power trip cementing the wrong impression among those whom we are fighting for."

By this, I assume you mean your comment.

"Grow up. Or enlist."

Thanks, Field Marshall Von Fake Email. I'll pass your wishes along to my needless, useless, power-tripping niece and nephew.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2003/12/post.html

[Frank J.]

To be fair, I don't think radical Muslims are the only ones who slap their mothers uncontrollably when embarrassed.

There are also schizophrenics.

[Nick Navel]

*snore*

Say what you will; there was nothing gained by what the soldiers did. It was yet another needless, useless, credibility-damaging power trip cementing the wrong impression among those whom we are fighting for. You're just pissed it got reported. Grow up. Or enlist.

[Captain Holly]

Let's consider this from another angle:

Joe is concerned that the soldiers who performed the raid on Imaad's girlie mag collection may have offended a xenophobic anti-Semetic mother-beating Iraqi, and thus turned him to the Dark Side.

But would Joe and Ms. Spinner (and anyone else who is not ROTFL over this incident) get as upset if the local cops here raided the trailer of a mother-beating Klansman, found his porno stash, and placed his Bible in the middle of it?

Does anyone here think Ms. Spinner would be sympathetic to the poor, offended, mouth-breathing racist? Hell no, she'd be writing attaboys for the cops.

Bush-hatred has unhinged the American Left so much that the day may soon come (if it's not already arrived) that Iowahawk's parodies are no longer considered parodies.

[Alex]

Does it occur to anyone else that to "slap one's mother" might be a, whaddyacallit, euphemism of some sort - and an especially unappealing one, at that?

[Dirk Diggler]

An emotional roller coaster from start to finish, Iowahawk. I laughed, I cried, I slapped my mother uncontrollably.

[Hubris]

capitano,

I don't think we can stop at blaming the soldiers - why didn't Rumsfeld have a plan for thoughtfully collating, by date and fetish, any pornography stash that was discovered?

[spongeworthy]

I'm curious why the chicken-choker smacked his Moms up but didn't have the stones to de-nogginize the WP reporter. Any chance there was a "pre-existing condition" going on in that household?

[capitano]

Hubris,

mother-beatin' chicken chokers

Add another category to the growing list of grievance groups -- this one has staying power.

[Clem Snide]

Awesome. Perhaps you could have a go at sending up humourless blame-america-first self-loathing lefties who treat the tall tales of WaPo lefties as gospel.

[WilliamP]

Fantastic stuff! Congrats, iowahawk!

[Da Man]

Iowahawk,

You made my day. Keep up the good work, and pay no attention to the nitpickers out there!

[leelu]

I heard Charles "Chuck" Colson, one of Nixon's staff, had that quote on a poster in his office.

The Duke?

[rumcrook]

I havent had a good laugh in a long time....

thanks iowahawk.

[ar46and2]

found it:

if you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow" -John Wayne

another interesting quote, not really related to the article but related to that quote:

"you can get much further with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone" -Al Capone

[ar46and2]

all this talk of winning hearts and minds reminds me of a quote i recently heard. i'm not sure who it was that said it off the top of my head, but he said something like "get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow"

[profligatewaste]

No one the left would ever stoop to mock anyone's religion - Jesusland, bible-slapping hick, holy roller . . . .

[RichinJapan]

A close run thing sir, I was laughing so hard, I
thought I'd either blow a blood vessel in my head or have a hernia. Great!

[iowahawk]

Are we at the place yet where your superior moral insight shames me into silence for making my blasphemous anti-Islam fart jokes? I think I dozed off there for a second.

To summarize: Irrespective of the stupidity of the Washington Post article (and it is profoundly stupid), if someone is so utterly insane that they are driven to mother-slapping and suicide belts by a little mockery of their religion, then I say let's have a gigantic religious comedy festival just to flush the fuckers out, now.

Think that's callous? Then go help Jerry Falwell get suicide belts to attack Jon Stewart. He's got a more valid claim to hurt feelings that the dumbass protagonist in the article.

Good luck on the new website, I'll be visiting for all the unintended laffs.

[Darleen]

O.mi.god..... It's MOCKING! (cue the sound of horses screaming)

Alert the International Red Cross to this alleged instance tantamount to torture.

(do ignore the beheadings, though...just kaffir and apostates being slaughtered..nothing to see, move along)

[Hubris]

Darleen,

You're being shortsighted. We can only prevail on the ground by winning the hearts and minds of the mother-beatin' chicken chokers.

[Darleen]

Hey Joe

Don't you find it just a little weird that Jackie Spinner (graduate of Berkeley School of "Journalism", natch) finds in a hotel bar some guy who thinks the Americans are devils for putting his Koran on a stack of girlie magazines then slaps the crap out of his mom for finding out...and she presents it with no sense of irony?

I guess moslems can be excused any sort of violence they commit when the true sinners are the kaffir who offended them?

God lord... does the phrase "dhimmi" mean anything to you?

[Joe]

Maybe I will. I'll call it "How to win hearts and minds as an occupying army by invading private homes and mocking their occupants". It'll be a real knee-slapper.

I guess the real punchline will be when that kid straps dynamite to his chest and blows up some Marines at a checkpoint. The laughs keep rolling in.

[iowahawk]

Man, that's best satire of an indignant, humorless lefty git I've read in weeks; fake email and all. You really should get your own site.

[Red Loser]

So...a guy who beats his own mother has become our enemy.

Darn.

[Iron Dave]

Joe might have a point if we could take the WaPo article as face value, as he apparently seems to. To me, there's an excellent chance that the raid did not occur as described and that this particular "terrorist" is not exactly Public Enemy Number One in Iraq.

[Joe]

Good one, Chuckie. That sure tore my argument to threads.

Maybe if you read the original WaPo article that this one is mocking, and then explained how creating terrorists is a laughing matter-- well, then I might be able to take you a little more seriously.

Right now, you're on the same intellectual level as my 3 year old son. Except even he knows that ad hominem isn't a valid argument.

Hope to hear from ya, and try to leave out the retort "poopyhead" from your response.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Joe, does the phrase "complete freaking moron" ring a tiny little bell of self-recognition?

It should.

[TS]

hilarious!

[Joe]

Hahaha! We mocked someone's religion and culture and made him so angry that he's willng to die to hurt America! That's hysterical!

Just a few more years of this and there won't be any terrorists left in Iraq. GW is such a genius.

[Quilly Mammoth]

Where are the Wedgies! We know that crusaders must have taken bespectacled Iraquis and given them wedgies! You aren't telling whole truth Iowahawk, something we have come to expect from you!

I feel a profound sense of disappointment that you, too, are little more than a pawn of the Zio-Nazi conspiracy!

Get your check yet?

QM

[terrye]

Man that was so funny.