No Worse Enemy: A Marine Breaks His Silence

This is the war that Massey refused to participate in—a war where the lines between civilians and military are blurred, and where soldiers who are fighting a phantom army require their victims to see them as saviors. According to Massey, it puts in context the killing of the Blackwater employees, which he sees as an act of retaliation from the Iraqis for the atrocities perpetrated on them instead of an attempt to “stop progress toward democracy,” as described by President Bush.

“The Marines were brainwashed to kill the enemy, now they’re brainwashed to kill civilians,” says Massey. “They used to be trained to meet the enemy on the battlefield. But in Iraq, there’s no enemy.” Lance Corporal Hoffman confirms, “When we were in training we would get target descriptions. [In actual battle] we never got target descriptions though we were expecting them. We were told not to worry about clearing targets, they were cleared by higher headquarters. We were just given the target and told to shoot. We had no idea what we were shooting at. Then they would tell us what we shot but we didn’t know if it was true.”

—Translated from the French by Stephan Smith

Natasha Saulnier is an independent journalist based in New York and published in Libération, l’Humanité, and other French publications as well as several online publications, including Common Dreams, Truth Out, and Greg Palast.com.