Overheated in Iraq

Posted on August 3, 2003 in War

This comment by Allison of Hartsongs deserves to be brought to fore:

If you haven’t already, take a look at this site.

This from a letter written in June, by a concerned soldier:

“I have witnessed several “higher ups” in my particular unit with private shower facilities, private porta-johns, and ice chests full of bottled water and potable ice in their immediate work areas while their subordinates (meaning the soldiers) are struggling every day to get a cold bottle of water. These very same senior soldiers are living in an air conditioned room while their soldiers are trying, in vain, to keep mosquitoes from consuming them nightly, and using hoses from an Iraqi latrine stall to get water enough to maintain their hygienic needs.”

This chart shows that as temperatures increase, acts of aggression become more common. In a study of hockey players, Canadian physiologist Ehor Boyanowsky found that as brain temperature increased, the players became more inclined to throw a fist or deliver a stick to the teeth of the opposition:

when temperature goes up, inhibitions diminish, causing some people to become aggressive. “They become increasingly able to short circuit the cues that would otherwise warn them about their agitation.” Ironically, in the case of the hockey incident, helmets worn for safety only intensify the heat. Boyanowsky suggests, “they might want to think about designing helmets with cooling systems.”

So here are our boys in Iraq, frying their brains in 110 degree heat day in and day out while their superiors sip bottled water in the cool of their trailers. The heat lowers the aggression threshhold, an Iraqi wrinkles his nose in a strange way or scratches his armpit. BOOM! A hail of bullets and you have a dead man who wasn’t a threat at all.

Back in the trailer, the superior officers frown. “God, I wish that they’d hold their tempers better. Could you get me another bottle of Crystal Springs?” The reporter accompanying them obliges. He won’t write this up. It’s another of those incidents of war that doesn’t mean much.

Except to the Iraqi and his family. Except to the soldier who will dream about this the rest of his life and wonder how it all went wrong.

I hope someone out there is taking notes for the war crimes trial of the men most responsible for this disgusting scenario. Address of the criminal in chief: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC. Also check No. 10 Downing Street, London.