Renomu

[Audio track from a video tape of a conversation between two unidentified field interrogators ‘Jill’ [‘Q1’] and ‘Sam’ [‘Q2’] and Corporal Mohammed Hussain [‘MH]’ seconded from 3ID to West’s 709th SOG north of Mosul in June 2003. The recording seems to have been made sometime in the summer of 2004. The interrogation technique - a spectacularly crude ‘good cop / bad cop’ routine - suggests that the personnel involved were at a low level of the command chain, without specialist training.
Warning: contains coarse language]

Q1: You understand the seriousness of the charges you are facing Corporal?
MH: Yes I do.
Q1: Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offense, you understand that?
MH: Yes I understand that.
Q2: So we know you were heading out to help your muj buddies?
MH: You don’t know that. You’ve got it all wrong …
Q2: Don’t give us that takki shit Hussein, we’ve got your number …
Q1: Let me deal with this for the moment Sam, OK? Look, Mohammed, you could be in very serious trouble here …
MH: You don’t know anything about this. Nothing! I’ve always been a faithful American …
Q2: Your kind of fucking treacherous scum make me sick Hussein …
Q1: Cool it Sam, just cool it a moment. … Corporal I understand it can’t be easy for anyone called Mohammed Hussain in the military right now. You must get a lot of strange looks. We’re just trying to work out what’s been happening here, OK? If you’ve been treated badly we want to know about it.
MH: What about him? Does he just want to ‘know about it’?
Q2: I want to put a piece of .38 cal right into your stinking muj-loving cranium you piece of shit, and you know what …
Q1: Hey, Sam, just give us a chance, OK?
Q2: You’re protecting this asshole now Jill. I’ll tell you something, I’ve got dead and crippled buddies singing in my brain, and you know what they’re telling me? If this lying heap of garbage isn’t talking in 5 fucking minutes he’s coming outside where me and my pals want to get familiar.
Q1: Just a chance, OK? … Corporal, you really need to start explaining what’s been going on here, because there are some very angry people …
Q2: Too fucking right!
MH: This is so fucking stupid! You think I have some sympathy with the mujaheddin? They’ve been shooting at us, blowing up our humvees, you think I like them now? You think just because I’m a Muslim …
Q1: So what was it all about Corporal?
MH: It was about West. About that goddamn psycho, he’s a madman! Really, before Allah I swear to you, West is bad news, bad for us, bad for America, his thinking is really … it’s really wrong, you know? Before Allah I swear this to you. I would never betray the guys, betray America, I love America, truly, you have to believe me …
Q1: Trouble is Mohammed, you went AWOL with your weapon, and it seems to us you were aiming to make contact with the enemy.
MH: No, no, I swear to you, you have it all wrong. I’m proud of this uniform, my parents are proud, I’d never shame them. It’s West. Your problem is West, I swear.
Q2: OK Jill, it’s over. Hussain, you had your motherfucking chance, guess what? You blew it. I’m going to enjoy executing you personally you treacherous piece of crap …
Q1: Just 5 more minutes Sam, just cool it, we’ve got all night if we need it.
MH: Please, please, I have nothing to hide, but you wouldn’t believe …
Q2: What wouldn’t we believe you muj cocksucker?
Q1: Hey, 5 minutes.
Q2: My watch is fucking ticking. Every second this motherfucker breathes oxygen is a second too long.
MH: Send him away, then I’ll talk …
Q2: Just keep wasting time asshole, ‘cos sure as hell you don’t have much of it …
MH: OK, OK, this is such stupid shit, you want to know? You want to know, I’ll tell you, I’m so sick of this shit. You’re not interested in the truth, but you know what? I’ll tell you the truth, then you can call me a liar and shoot me, and you know what? I don’t care anymore about this fucking shit …
Q1: Just explain what happened Corporal.
MH: It was West. You know him right? That crazy fucking bastard, you know him? After Baghdad fell they said an interpreter was needed for some special operations in the north. My parents taught me good Arabic so I volunteered, OK? I fucking volunteered to help that madman. They took me in a helicopter and already it was strange. They were West’s people and I felt bad about them very quickly. Their humour was all fucked up, you know? I was a fucking liberator until I got onto that fucking helicopter. I’ve always loved America …
Q2: Cut the shit Hussain …
Q1: Give him a chance Sam …
MH: Just listen! For god’s sake just listen to me you idiots! I’m so sick of these fucking stupid games. I’ll tell you everything and then you can fucking shoot me you stupid bastards. So when I left 3ID the war was over, and now there’s some new war and West is bringing me documents all the time, and I’m helping to interrogate prisoners, and we talk a lot, me and West, about Arabic words, political ideas, religious ideas, stranger and stranger things. No one sleeps enough, as if we’re on some big final push, you know, a final effort – they’re all taking pills, speed, lots of speed, but so much drugs, hashish, opium, except the Colonel – West – he seems to stay clean, and I try too, except eventually I need the pills just to function, you know? They’re using up their reserves of energy, maybe one/two hours sleep a night, as if it’s all about to end, but it just goes on and on.
Q2: What goes on?
MH: This little war, this private fucking war of West’s, and you know what? I don’t think it’s ever going to end. Because I’m an American soldier, you know? I fought to liberate this country, and what we were told about that, then what West told us, those things weren’t the same. Maybe at first they might seem the same, but slowly, steadily, they drifted apart, further and further. West didn’t want the war to end, not ever. But he spoke to me, and I understand the special thing people feel for him. He’s not an ordinary man. He changed me.
Q2: Changed you?
MH: He taught me things, and you know what? You know fucking what? They’re things I didn’t want to learn. Things no one should ever learn. Unamerican, inhuman things.
Q2: You’re wasting our time Hussain.
Q1: Sam! Seriously, shut the fuck up … Corporal, what things?
MH: So you’re interested now you stupid bitch! Like you’re going to believe me …
Q1: Corporal …
Q2: OK Hussain, that’s it, make your peace with the fucking moongod, we’re going outside …
Q1: For fuck’s sake Sam …
MH: Fuck you stupid assholes …
Q1: Corporal, just finish the story.
MH: Who cares, right? It’s all lies and madness, right? I’ll tell you …
Q1: So tell us.
MH: Renomu.
Q1: Re- what?
MH: Renomu, he told me about Renomu. He told me a lot about it, night after night, how the military was ‘freeing itself’ … and then …
Q1: And then?
MH: And then it got a lot stranger. It became harder and harder to resist what he was saying, I don’t know why, it all fitted together, that the President was just a puppet, that civilians wouldn’t matter soon, stuff I knew was very wrong, unamerican, that it was time to discard inhibiting ideas, that we’d been misled about the nature of time, that the war was our god …
Q1: Mohammed, you have to slow down.
Q2: This is such bullshit.
MH: Every night, after working through the documents, he’d talk to me, like he was in a trance. I was so tired, but after a while that wouldn’t matter any more, it was like hypnotism I guess, it was horribly … pure … truly, I feared for my soul. I’ve tried to be a good Muslim, but there was a voice, it said: ‘you know he’s a prophet.’ You wouldn’t understand. That’s an evil thing. I thought Satan had found me, but it was Renomu.
Q2: This Renomu dude again?
MH: It was Renomu, speaking directly to me, and that meant everything West had said was true … it was too horrible. Too horrible. This was the end of America, the end of everything – the end of God. I had to go …
Q1: Go?
MH: I had to go. This wasn’t about anything I believe in, anything you stupid assholes believe in – it was Renomu.
Q1: Mohammed, please, it’s really not easy to follow what you’re saying …
Q2: Time’s up you muj-loving motherfucker we’re heading outside …
Q1: Sam!
MH: Go on, kill me you morons! You think anything scares me after West? After Renomu? These stupid games, it’s such shit. You think you can put a gun to my head and learn the secrets of Renomu? Grow up you stupid little children. Shoot me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Q2: You know Hussain, that attitude could lead to major cranial trauma.
MH: I don’t care. Assholes. Play your stupid games.
Q1: Sam, seriously, let’s try and get what we can here. … Look, Corporal, I’ll be straight with you, this seems seriously fucked up stuff. Maybe you need medical help, I don’t know. Amphetamines can be very destructive drugs. And if you’re hiding stuff about links with the mujaheddin …
MH: Fuck the mujaheddin, this isn’t about them …
Q1: Really, Sam, back off a little, OK?
Q2: OK. We’ll do it your way, for a while.
Q1: Corporal, this ‘Renomu’ thing …?
MH: The sleep deprivation, the pills, they damaged my soul. I know that. Renomu’s voice … I’ve tried to understand. Maybe it was just sickness. But it made sense, abominable sense, more than anything I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to be a good Muslim, a good American …
Q1: Just try to explain Mohammed, help us here, what is ‘Renomu’?
MH: I will, I’ll try to help you. You’re fools, but I was a fool too, before, before West, I understand. I understand that. Maybe it was just the pills, but the pills came from Renomu, Renomu stole our sleep, Renomu sent West to us, Renomu sent us bags of dried ears and scattered them on our desks, Renomu sent us weapons, papers, prisoners, Renomu re-ordered our souls. ‘Read the American Constitution backwards and it will lead you straight to Renomu,’ that was what West said. Even then, from the beginning, I knew I’d have to go, get away, either go or be taken to the worst place in the world. The truth about Renomu? Well you should know … [transcript ends [sort of annoyingly].