Nooses in Iraq

"It is too easy for a black soldier to come up missing or dead." - Black soldier under military detention in Iraq

(BAGHDAD ) - The Jena 6 outrage, which led Mychal Bell back to jail and saw five other black boys, peeled away the thin veneer of a color blind society and revealed a festering cancer of racism, oozing with repressed hatred in the United States.

Galvanizing the black community, black leaders of all stripes called for a blackout day boycott, a march on Washington DC, and congressional actions to label such acts as hanging nooses hate crimes.

Missing in action and feared dead for a period of time, deep-cover operative Peep City Barnabus ultimately sent a dispatch to The DISH in late 2007, in which the super sleuth tells a chilling and tragic story that confirms racism is expressed as openly in the military as it is on US streets.

According to Peep City, black soldiers are finding nooses in bed rolls, duffel bags and other personal belongings. Complaints to their superiors are dismissed as overly sensitive of pranks, even though a black driver found a noose hanging in his tank.

Complaining soldiers that try to talk to the media are threatened with court-martial.

One soldier who had been placed under military detention told Barnabus, a black soldier that was in the cell next to him had been sucked up by "rendition" because he tried to contact his congressman about nooses and racism in his unit.

"The brother disappeared into a black hole during the night and no one has seen him since."

Peep City would not provide any names for fear of retaliation. He said, "It is too easy for a black soldier to come up missing or dead."

Barnabus warned further, "The rednecks are in charge, so black soldiers have to go along to get along. Black soldiers' only hope of making it out of Iraq alive is to keep their heads down."

(Salem-News.com Editor's note: I was in Iraq last summer when Barnabus filed this report with The DISH. At the time, I wrote about racism clearly flowing from the lips of white soldiers, particularly from the Indiana National Guard. While this type of behavior can be common among soldiers from southern states, it seemed noteworthy that so many Indiana troops whose ancestors actually fought for the Union during the American Civil War, would be racist today. The problems Barnabus wrote about are not isolated and are common throughout Iraq)

Originally published by The DISH Volume 10 Issue 42…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 19, 2007.

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Astounded June 2, 2009 5:34 am (Pacific time)

I am astounded that this article was allowed to be published with such flagrant assumptions backed by no fact other than two people's personal experiences. What type of journalism is this? I have served in the Army for 10 years and have not experience racism yet. Perhaps your experience with the National Guard, where units are stood up as a representative part of a state/ society (such as the Indiana National Guard) do not represent the Active Duty Army where soldiers are from many different locations. I understand this will get an "Editor" comment which sounds something uneducated like: "You're an idiot and I doubt you were in the Army." Well as a preemptive strike, I doubt your small amount of time "visiting" Iraq compares to the 30 months which I have completed. So please do not publish such conspiracy theories as news. Thank you.

Editor: You're dreaming, and somehow missing some of the most basic stuff

Madison June 1, 2009 6:31 pm (Pacific time)

I thought the below article may clear up some views on the military vote during the last election. Unfortunately it shows how divided we are both in civilian society as well as in the military. Does not look like things are going to improve anytime soon, maybe get worse if gas and energy costs go up as expected. "A Military Times poll indicates landslide support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. While McCain captured 68 percent of the military vote, his Democratic rival Barack Obama had 23 percent. A racial divide was immediately evident among the respondents. Nearly eight in 10 black service members chose Obama, while McCain captured 76 percent of white voters and 63 percent of Hispanic voters. Numbers among men and women respondents were also visibly different. Men overwhelmingly said they would vote for McCain, 80 percent to 22 percent. But among women the margin was much closer: 53 percent support McCain, while 36 percent support Obama. U.S. troops also said in the poll that they prefer McCain to handle the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — 74 percent said McCain would perform better, while just 19 percent said Obama would. There was a racial divide on these issues, as well. Black service members said the economy was the No. 1 issue that affected their vote, and white troops said character was paramount. Judging by the numbers, it appears that the Democratic Party has not made much inroads into the traditionally Republican military. (ANI)"

Lawrence June 1, 2009 1:25 pm (Pacific time)

True to form, in an alleged “news” story yesterday, The New York Times continued its front-page campaign for the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. Why The Times isn’t required to file as a federal lobbyist is a mystery. The article claims Obama “bemoaned” racial “identity politics” during the campaign, but his Supreme Court nominee is said to embody them. As proof that Obama rejected identity politics during the 2008 campaign, The Times says he disavowed “the inflammatory rhetoric of his minister,” Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In reality, he first tried to rationalize Wright’s racism. Finally, when it was starting to take a toll on his popularity, Obama admitted that he was disappointed in the lunatic racist. The Times tries to deflect complaints about Sotomayor’s firm commitment to racial spoils and her belief that skin color somehow bestows virtue.

Anonymous June 1, 2009 11:06 am (Pacific time)

So why not ban everyone that you disagree with?

EDITOR: This isn't about disagreements, we don't expect everyone to agree and we respect that. We only ban based on foul language, vicious name calling, threats, etc. (See our Terms of Service) Thankfully it's a rare situation. Most people want to just express themselves via the Comments section, find middle ground and treat each other fairly. That's why they venture to add their two cents worth. You are invited to do the same.

Anonymous June 1, 2009 9:46 am (Pacific time)

No doubt this blog site censors materials that provide documents/sources....

EDITOR: On the contrary. This news site has many filters, one is to stop spammers from wasting our space with their links to unrelated topic websites. Yours barely passes. Your attitude however, DOES NOT. One more denigrating statement and you will be banned.

Veteran May 31, 2009 6:48 pm (Pacific time)

Someone wrote that "crime goes back and forth!" That's a pretty incoherent statement and nothing could be further from the truth. There are well documented patterns on who are causing the majority of crime broken down by category. Big difference between white collar, property and crimes of violence. Big difference. Blacks commit the majority of crime in nearly all categories, and when you break it down to their share of the population the stats are shocking. As far as military crime and who causes the most of it, well the military reflects the civilian breakdown, just less of it. Also don't forget about that black at the start of the Iraq war who fragged and killed many of his fellow soldiers, all white by the way. You can put your head in the sand but people know the fatcs, not all of them, but the word gets out.

Editor: Yeah, whatever "veteran" which by the way I doubt. The only thing your words bring to mind is "racist" and I hope you live in fear, which you obviously do, each and every single day of your life until you pull your head out of the little tub of hatred that you lap from. Just why do you think black people commit crimes anyway? Let's hear it, you know what your little brain tells you, just blurt it out. The thing is, that their ancestors were slaves, and they were treated like crap then and then they were supposedly "freed" and then treated like crap some more. Then, after that, they were treated like crap. Blacks have not been "free" in the south even in the most basic sense, since the early 1960's when the FBI went after it and kicked the soul of racism itself. Watch or read Mississippi Burning. Study and learn what great men like Dr. King preached and stood for. He was non violent all the way and he was treated like crap and eventually assassinated. Then there was Malcolm X who saw that non-violence wasn't getting very far. Study up and just know that all people really are created equal in terms of humanity, but where they begin in life has everything to do with how things turn out. Maybe some day we will adequately fund programs to help people living a life of crime. What a novel idea.

JosephineSouthern May 31, 2009 2:20 pm (Pacific time)

Shame on you for using the Jena 6 story that says it is ok for black students to hit a white student in the head from behind and when he fell unconscious on the floor to stand around and kick him. And then you don't even tell the truth about lynching. Tuskegee and U of MA stats show about 3500 total between the years 1882 and 1968. 80 years worth, and far Less than all the black on black murders in 2005. Lynching "Defined as an act of violence perpetrated for the purpose of punishment (usually torture and death) for an alleged crime carried out by an extralegal mob, lynching has a long history in the United States. Historians have traced its roots to seventeenth-century Ireland; the American Revolutionary War Colonel Charles Lynch, from whose name the term derives, was said to have indiscriminately meted out the punishment of flogging for Tory sympathizers. Lynch law, or mob rule, became part of the fabric of the United States; lynchings took place in every geographic section of the nation, and victims included African Americans, immigrants, and native-born whites. Alleged crimes varied, but most lynchings involved a perceived transgression of community values or a violation of societal honor codes. During the antebellum period, lynch mobs across the country preyed upon individuals and groups deemed dangerous because they were political, religious, or racial "others." Abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, Asian, Mexican, and European immigrants and African Americans all were targets. The pattern of mob violence and lynching changed after the Civil War. During the five decades between the end of Reconstruction and the New Deal, there were three specific transformations in the character of American lynching: increased numbers over all; increased likelihood that African Americans would fall victim to lynch mobs; and a concentration of lynchings in the South, particularly after 1886. The Tuskegee Institute started recording statistics on lynchings in 1882 (later, the Chicago Tribune and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] also collected statistics). The first decade of those statistical findings best illustrates the transformation of lynching patterns. In 1882, 113 people were lynched, sixty-four whites and forty-nine African Americans. The year 1885 was the last during which more whites than African Americans were lynched, and 1892 witnessed the largest number of lynchings in U.S. history (230). From 1882 to 1903, there were approximately one to two hundred lynchings annually. Between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,742 recorded lynchings (3,445 of the victims were African American, or approximately seventy-five percent)." All that was cut and pasted from the internet. Even at it's black peak, 25% of lynching victims were white. It all started with whites lynching whites. The stats only go back to 1882 when black lynchings started to increase big time. Up until then it was WHITES..................YOU can't say who got lynched more in U.S. history because they didn't start counting until black lynchings started to rise. In any event, LYNCHING DOES NOT MEAN BLACK. Blacks can't claim sole victimization.

Anonymous May 30, 2009 7:05 pm (Pacific time)

how about the blacks here in OUR OWN COUNTRY, that are being gunned down by hispanic gangs. Nothing against hispanics, but i blogged 3 or 4 years ago, that if the huge influx of another culture, no matter what culture, merges with another, there will be big problems. This article is nothing compared to what is going on IN OUR OWN COUNTRY.

Laws Work May 30, 2009 1:18 pm (Pacific time)

It's "Cry Wolf" propaganda. Not unlike Al Sharpton's scam with Tawana Brawley and dozens of other false reports since, many of which were prosecuted. The thing that the media always refrains from doing is showing the violent crime rate that is compiled by the U.S. Justice Department. One can write as many stories as the one above, but the American people are constanly via their own personal experience (literally thousands of caucasian victims of minority crimes, much of which is violent) seeing the actual crime being committed by minorities. Though keep putting out these stories it won't make any difference though more amd more Americans will see through the propaganda. Just print the crime data, that is very sobering. May all the liars out there meet up with these violent offenders real soon.

Editor: Wow, what a load of crap. Of course crime goes back and forth, that isn't rocket science. But one side is doing it to stay alive and the other does it out of hatred for another race and bogus white superiority. You need to wake up before its over friend, and understand that your comfortable white world is not the same one others live in. There are serious problems in this system that didn't even allow black and white soldiers to serve together until 1947. (One of the few positive things that happened that year.) Take a look at this story about the injustice suffered by African American soldier Lavena Johnson in Iraq: Army Should Reopen Investigation Into Death of Pfc Lavena Johnson (VIDEO)

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