Music video starring killer troops rocks marines

THE United States Marine Corps has condemned a music video that appears to show a marine strumming a guitar and singing a song about killing Iraqis, accompanied by laughter and cheers from other troops.

The video, Hadji Girl, was posted anonymously on a website and features a man dressed in an olive-coloured T-shirt singing obscenity-laced lyrics describing an encounter with an Iraqi woman and her family.

“We’re looking into it,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon. Asked if the video genuinely showed a marine, Colonel Fazekas said: “I can’t tell. In looking at it, it could be anywhere, it could be anybody.”

Its existence has come to light as the military investigates the role of marines in the deaths of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha in November.

“The Marine Corps has recently been made aware of a video … that purports to show a marine singing an insensitive song about Iraqis,” Colonel Fazekas said. “The video that was posted anonymously is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all marines.”

The video, posted on the www.youtube.com website in March, has been removed.

At one point, the man sings: “I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me. As the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally.” In the background, laughing, clapping and cheers can be heard.

About 20,000 marines are deployed in Anbar province, one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq, and more than 700 have been killed in the war.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, urged the military and Congress to investigate who was behind the video.

“It shows what we hope is not a pervasive culture … of a lack of sensitivity to the suffering of civilians in Iraq,” its spokesman said.

source:Reuters