Every Iraqi Knows

Every Iraqi Knows

June-July, 2006

Every Iraqi knows
there are lions in the desert.
And by now, every Iraqi knows
the American soldiers stalked Abeer
like lions,
in a pack,
the leaders among them taking
the first bites
of her fifteen-year old flesh.

A U.S. official called it
a "crime of opportunity,"
but every Iraqi knows that –
crouching behind lies
the size of boulders,
monitoring winds,
moving through a grassy savannah
of misinformation,
certain of the entitlement
of their sex, their race
their weaponry –
they stalked her
as Cheney and Rumsfeld stalked Iraq.

They singled Abeer out
as the neocons singled out Iraq,
for its vulnerability,
for the treasures hidden beneath
the plain folds of its dress.

They raped her
as the Coalition Provisional Authority
raped Iraq,
forcing its legs,
authorizing foreign capital
to penetrate, to seed itself.

And after raping her,
after killing her parents
and her younger sister,
they poured petrol
and set her on fire.
She burned just as Iraq burns,
blue and orange flames devouring
its body,
thick, black smoke scorching
the throat and eyes
of anyone who tries to watch,
who tries to scream for help.

David Smith-Ferri

Abeer means "fragrance of flowers." She was 14 years old. The soldiers noticed her at a checkpoint. They stalked her after one or more of them expressed his intention to rape her. On March 12, 2006, after playing cards while slugging whisky mixed with a high-energy drink and practicing their golf swings, they changed into black civvies and burst into Abeer's home in Mahmoudiya, a town 50 miles south of Baghdad. They killed her mother Fikhriya, father Qassim, and five-year-old sister Hadeel with bullets to the forehead, and "took turns" raping Abeer. Finally, they murdered her, drenched the bodies with kerosene, and lit them on fire to destroy the evidence. Then the GIs grilled chicken wings.

These details are from a sworn statement by Spc. James P. Barker, one of the accused.

--From an article by Robin Morgan.

from David's book BATTLEFIELD WITHOUT BORDERS