segunda-feira, 5 de maio de 2008

Toca a marchar

Estive a ler este livro acerca de um tenente-coronel dos Marines que durante a invasão de Fallujah encontra um cachorrinho abandonado, toma conta dele e depois, oh coração mole!, contra as ordens que explicitamente proíbem os militares americanos em serviço de adoptar como mascote, cuidar de ou alimentar qualquer tipo de animal doméstico ou selvagem, resolve ficar com ele e levá-lo para os Estados Unidos, sabendo que se não o conseguir fazer o cachorro será abandonado ou abatido.

O livro tem final feliz, o que já não é mau, mas entretanto fica-se com a noção do que é aquela guerra: não há nada nos jornais ou televisões que nos aproxime mais da realidade.

Exemplos:


While some consider Fallujah the most dangerous place on earth, others believe waiting in line to pass into Baghdad's Green Zone is worse. stopped vehicles make easy targets for snipers, and car bombs explode here by the dozens (...)

Jay Kopelman & Melinda Roth, From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava, Guilford, 2006, pg 92

Meanwhile, outside on the streets, psychological operations teams blast AC/DC and Jimi Hendrix through loudspeakers, with the additional sound effects of crying babies, screaming women, screetching cats, and howling dogs, in hopes of turning the insurgents' nerves to shreds. They boadcast insults in Arabic (...), which, along with the mortar, grenades, ceaseless rumbling of Humvees, and twenty different kinds of aircraft flying in precise layers over the city (...) create a kind of white noise that allows us all to sleep pretty soundly through the night.

id, pg 16

(...) I start yelling.
"Knock that shit off."
And I keep yelling.
"Safe your weapons."
And they keep jerking their eyes one way and their rifles another way.
"I said knock that shit off!"
Until I see they've gone into another zone of fear that even I don't have access to, and one of the other Marines (...) says to me, "Take it easy on them, man, they don't understand English"

ibid, pg 13

If you're unfortunate enough to live in the Red Zone and have to actually go somewhere within it, the safest way to travel is as discreetly as possible.(...) Thin-skinned sedans are the way to go, because while they won't stop the bullets, they allow "rocket grenades to pass right through."

ibid, pg 94

2 comentários:

Van Dog disse...

Tenho de ler...

Gi disse...

Eu gostei, Van Dog, mas cuidado, tem informações sobre o uso de cães em guerra que talvez preferíssemos não saber...