Marine sings about shooting child dead

The Times Online, UK, 6/15/06 

 

A US corporal was forced to apologise for writing and singing a song to fellow Marines about him shooting dead an Iraqi child.

A video of Joshua Belile performing Hadji Girl at a base in Iraq surfaced on the internet as President Bush met US troops in Baghdad. In his song, Corporal Belile describes shooting a girl and watching blood flow from her head.

The song title is taken from the honorific haji, for one who has visited Mecca, which US soldiers use pejoratively for all Iraqis.

He told his local newspaper in North Carolina that the song was intended as a joke.