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BLOG FROM BAGHDAD
By Joe Carr
Joe Carr spent May-June 2005 with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq doing human rights documentation, independent journalism, and supporting the work of anti-occupation activists in Baghdad, Karballa, and Fallujah.
Fears Faced and Lessons Learned 14 June, 2005
Shaggy 4 June, 2005
"Don't Pay Money for Enemy's Weapons" 3 June, 2005
Karballa - The City of the Peace 31 May, 2005
Camp Lima 30 May, 2005
Muslim Peacemaker Teams 30 May, 2005
Fallujah - An Unnatural Disaster 28 May, 2005
Armed & Righteous 27 May, 2005
Bored in Baghdad 21 May, 2005
Scania Military Base 17 May, 2005
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Occupation 16 May, 2005
My First Car Bomb 10 May, 2005
Green Zone 10 May, 2005
Palestine Hotel 9 May, 2005
Baghdad 7 May, 2005
Facing Fear 6 May, 2005
14 June, 2005
Fears Faced and Lessons Learned
Reflections from a month in Iraq by Joe Carr
My month with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad gave me a much greater understanding of the US occupation and my role in ending it.
Iraq is a very difficult place to be. A cloud of sadness and hopelessness hangs over Baghdad; I couldn’t help but feel isolated and depressed for most of my time there. The security situation makes it difficult to go anywhere, and the heat and electricity problems keep daily life rather wretched. I struggled with boredom and inactivity as much as I did fear and insecurity.
However, looking back, I realize that I was able to accomplish some amazing things. In one month, I met and interviewed dozens of Iraqis including detainee families, sheiks, priests, activists, doctors, shopkeepers, politicians, fighters, and police. I talked with many US soldiers and commanders, and with other international volunteers and human rights workers. I traveled around Baghdad, into the Green Zone, down to Karballa and up to Fallujah. I sent out 20 reports to my email list of over 550 people and received more than 2000 visitors to my website. Dozens of other websites and publications reprinted my reports including Electronic Iraq, Media Island International, Voices in the Wilderness, Infoshop News, Selves and Others, National Catholic Reporter, Works in Progress, and many independent media centers. My piece on Fallujah was translated into German and Arabic and printed in newspapers, and over 5000 people viewed the pictures I took there. I’ve done multiple radio and print interviews and I continue to get called. All this in only one month!
My experience leaves me without question that the presence of internationals in Iraq is essential! Dangerous? Yes. Challenging? Of course. Expensive and intimidating? Certainly. But is that ever a reason not to do something? Absolutely not. Many activists, even some in CPT, believe that it is stupid for internationals to be in Iraq right now. The US has intentionally allowed the security situation to deteriorate to justify their presence and scare away international observers. It is stupid for the activist community to let them get away with that, and allow the US a free hand in occupying Iraq undocumented. We will never begin to challenge US Imperialism without taking risks and putting our comfort and safety on the line. Only when we realize what a privilege it is to be able to chose danger and then make that choice, will we approach true solidarity.
Iraqis constantly reminded me that my real work is in the US educating and organizing with my fellow Americans. My experience in Iraq has greatly enhanced my ability to do this work, and inspired me to help pull our movement out of its passive and predictable rut. The days of signing petitions and holding signs on street corners are over, it’s time to be creative and militant and seriously risk ourselves for justice in American streets.
I call on all international organizations to return to Iraq, and for individuals to organize and take part in fact-finding delegations. Westerners must see what’s truly happening in Iraq, only then can we begin to push for change. Americans must demand the US withdraw from Iraq and end all Imperialistic conquests, and we must disrupt the lives of those benefiting from war and occupation. Iraqis risk and give their lives daily in their struggle for freedom, its high time that we join them.
4 June, 2005
The stories are never ending with this 24-year-old Iraqi Palestinian. At our weekly Thursday night beer, music and banter ritual, I am continually amazed at what he’s gone through and yet how normal he remains.
I enjoy visiting his home. His mother is a poet, an activist, and a total sweetheart. His dad is a former Fateh political and military official who was involved in fighting the Israelis in Lebanon and Jordan, and he welcomes me to their home, “I am your father, these are your brothers, and this is your house” he tells me. Shaggy and his brother (I call him Scooby) are your classic college boys. They’ve decked out their room with Metallica and Eminem graffiti, and proudly display their collection of hukas, including one for their car.
They love to cruise around in their “humvee”, a rusty 83 Corona DX that barely runs and is falling apart. They have many stories from out on the road. Iraqi drivers live in fear of convoys that have a way of randomly appearing and shooting anything too close to them. Shaggy says that he has repeatedly just narrowly avoided spooking the troops.
One time, Shaggy was riding with his cousin when they came upon a random Iraqi Police checkpoint. His cousin suddenly informed him that he was carrying a handgun without a permit, so they started getting nervous. The police found the firearm but said they didn’t care, however they took his mobile phone and refused to give it back. Turns out this was the second mobile phone the police had stolen from Shaggy’s cousin. There are many stories of theft and corruption among the new Iraqi Police.
Getting gas is an adventure. The lines are much shorter now that the situation is better, but Iraqis still have to wait in lines of cars for about 20 minutes. Right now, gas is about 50 Iraqi Dinars (two cents) a liter, so that’s like seven cents a gallon. Shaggy fills his tank for about one US dollar.
Turns out, Shaggy worked as an emergency medic during the US invasion. The situation was so chaotic that medical students and random trainees were administering first-aid and pulling bodies from the rubble. Shaggy and his team found and buried around 5,000 to 6,000 bodies he said, 90% of which were civilians and over 60% were women and children.
He remembers the bombing of his neighborhood all too vividly. “One time, we saw a huge cloud yellow smoke, which was some kind of uranium weapon. When we arrived, there was hardly anything left of the houses. There were 14 people in the houses and there was nothing left, just rubble and what looked like blended meat. I was a vegetarian for three months after that because I couldn’t handle the smell of cooked flesh.” He said a US radiation clean-up crew removed all the material from the site the next day. Though illegal under international law, the US commonly uses depleted uranium (DU) weapons because it’s an incredibly strong and heavy metal. The dust from DU munitions has led to enormous health problems in Iraqis and also in coalition troops. Usually, the US doesn’t clean it up, so it makes me wonder if this explosion isn’t evidence of the US military’s testing of small-scale nuclear weapons during the invasion.
Shaggy described other horrific scenes from US chemical weapons. “We found one man who was still alive but his flesh was melting. Like something you would see in a movie. Another body we found had become just a skeleton in a few hours, we had to identify her from her hair.”
Shaggy said that this work was very dangerous, and he came closer to death than ever before in his life. “The US would often bomb an area again 45 minutes after they’d bombed it, often killing many aid workers, injured civilians, and curious onlookers. He showed me the scar on his arm from one of these attacks. “I heard the planes coming and started running. When the missile hit, the explosion threw me into the air. Somehow, I landed safely and was really happy that I was ok. I stood up in disbelief, just in time to get hit by tons of falling rocks and shrapnel. It was like a rain-shower” he said laughing.
After the Memorial Day service at Camp Lima, Shaggy wanted to learn the Pledge of Allegiance. The boy actually memorized it and says that it’s gotten him pushed though several US checkpoints. The other night, Shaggy was sitting outside his house smoking a huka after curfew and a US patrol came to hassle him. “What are you doing?” they asked. “Smokin my huka” he replied. “But its after curfew, you have to be inside.” “This is my property,” he informed them, “I have a right to sit here.” They noted that his English was very good and asked him what state he was from. They got a kick out of the fact that he’d never even been outside of Iraq. Shaggy said they sat and smoked the huka with him for awhile because they thought it had marijuana in it. Shaggy told us while laughing, “One said ‘I’m not getting high’ and I told him ‘that’s cause it’s just flavored tobacco you dork’ and the other soldiers laughed at him.”
Though they’d like to think their lives are normal, Iraqi youth live in constant risk of violence and detention. Scooby and his friends recently ended up in the middle of a random fire fight and one of them got shot. They took him to the hospital and got him fixed up, but it was after curfew. An Iraqi Police convoy agreed to escort them home, but their taxi driver was drunk and followed the wrong convoy which was headed toward the Green Zone. The police found them suspicious and arrested them, but fortunately Scooby was able to explain the situation get released. Shaggy went and picked him up the next morning.
Shaggy wants nothing more than to come to the US. He feels strangled by the lack of opportunity and the conservative culture in Iraq. He is like so many other young Iraqis; haunted my memories, scarred by violence, and torn between his Iraqi roots and western branches. May he someday come into his own.
"DON'T PAY MONEY FOR THE ENEMY'S WEAPONS"
Iraqi activists plan to boycott US products
Today, I attended an Iraqi activist meeting discussing new forms of resistance to the occupation. The meeting took place at Women’s Will, a women’s rights and social justice organization, and represented were some of the more radical leftist groups in Baghdad. The bulk of the conference focused around a proposed boycott of US and Israeli goods that have flooded Iraqi markets since the invasion.
A woman opened, “We are now living under another dictatorship, you see what kind of democracy we have, seems more like bloodacracy. You see what kind of liberation they brought: unemployment, murder and destruction. We must resist this, it is the right of any occupied people to resist. Especially the women, we can use the simplest weapons of resistance, a financial boycott.” They passed around flyers and one translated to, “Don’t pay money for the enemy’s weapons”.
Well educated activists articulated the economic strategies of the US occupation. “They want to make Iraq a duty-free market for their products and put Iraqi products out of business.” Many of the products are causing health problems, “They’re importing food that’s expired and harmful to us. The Ministry of Health has found items now available that were forbidden because they are cancerous or cause sterility.” Since medication is also difficult to get, imitation and dangerous drugs are appearing in stores and on the black market. One man told a story of a diabetic woman who contracted HIV from an insulin shot.
“We’d like to teach our fellow citizens that they can be part of the resistance by boycotting US and Israeli goods” an activist stated. “The main reason for the occupation is the economic benefits, so with a boycott simple people can make lasting change.” They insisted that there were plenty of Iraq products that could replace these cheap imports, and that it is largely up to Iraqi women to make this change.
They plan to launch an information campaign warning Iraqis about the health problems caused by these products, and making the links between US products and the occupation. They discussed using the mass media, “But they will never show it on TV,” one activist said, “its controlled by the occupation”. They noted that they will face difficulties combating America’s seductive advertising techniques, but they believe small education campaigns can change many minds. A woman gave an example of a store in her neighborhood that was selling primarily US imports even though they’d asked him to stop. “We made a demonstration and told everyone not to buy there, and it closed”.
“We can make a website” one activist suggested, “Lets hand out flyers outside of mosques and universities” another brainstormed. They were very conscious of the risks they face in publicly organizing this kind of resistance. Present was a local Imam who had been arrested after he spoke out against the US occupation. “Soon after I spoke against US advertising in my Friday speech, US spies came and took me away. I was held for five months and interrogators told me it was because I had spoken against US products.” This kind of fascist repression is nothing new for Iraqis, they know that freedom means risking their lives.
“The resistance can attack the trucks carrying products through our borders” an activist pointed out, “but we must do our part and stop buying them.” “We can convince 10 or 20 today, maybe 100 tomorrow,” one said hopefully, “we have to start now to make sure there will be no McDonalds in Iraq.” A woman concluded the conference with a statement of conviction, “It would be shameful for us to be under occupation and do nothing. It would be torture for me to stay silent.”
KARBALLA – THE CITY OF THE PEACE
I just spent two days in
the southern Iraqi city of Karballa. Getting there was a
bit of trick, we had to drive through the dangerous “Sunni Triangle” and dozens
of checkpoints. It was particularly bad the day we left because the
US was beginning “Operation Lightening”, where they planned to completely
surround Baghdad and “sweep” the city in
an attempt to appear offensive and test the new Iraqi security services. The
major highway was completely blocked by a huge convoy of trucks carrying tanks,
equipment and supplies. We tried for over and hour with hundreds of other cars
to get through on the side roads, but it eventually became clear that it was
impassible and we had to go around another way.
Driving down along the Euphrates was absolutely gorgeous. Small simple villages inhabit areas lush with palm trees and forest life. There are also many ruins from Iraq’s ancient past, including many built by Shiite pilgrims on their way to Najaf and Karballa, and some left-overs from the Roman and British occupations. Karballa itself is amazing; it’s probably my favorite Iraqi city so far.
Karballa is an incredibly
significant city in Shiite Muslim history. According to Shiite theology, the
Prophet Mohammad (may peace and blessings be upon him) appointed Imam Ali
(Mohammad’s cousin who married Mohammad’s daughter Fatima) as his successor.
After the Prophet died in 632AD, one of his closest friends, Abu Bakr, was
elected Caliph (successor). However, a significant portion still believed that
Ali was the rightful successor and followed him, calling themselves the Shiite,
or “partisans of Ali”. Eventually, Ali became Caliph after his supporters
assassinated the successors of Abu Bakr.
Ali was then challenged by Muawiyyah, then governor of Damascus, who became
Caliph after Ali was assassinated. Ali’s son Hussein led an army
to challenge the new ruler (the Sunnis) and was killed in Karballa in 680AD;
thus beginning centuries of Sunni rule and Shiite struggle.
Thousands of Shiite flood the city every year to pay homage. We observed many families of pilgrims sleeping on rugs and sheets of cardboard outside the shrine. Though foreigners are a common site in this city, we were encouraged to don traditional dress. It was fun for me to sport the long white robe and head scarf, but was rather burdensome for the women who had to wear layers of thick black cloth in the scorching heat.
The
Shiite built two elaborate, ornate shrines in Karballa to commemorate Imam
Hussein and his brother Abbas. There’s a third shrine in Najaf where Imam Ali
is buried, which is where the US faced
off with Muqtada Al Sadr a year ago. An official at Imam Hussein’s shrine
explained that the Shiite have always had a spirit of resistance, inspired by
the “revolution of Imam Hussein”. This has brought them much trouble from Arab leaders who want to dominate
and control them; Saddam Hussein (aided and allowed by the US)
repeatedly massacred the Shiite in order to squash their revolts. The Shiite
have also been resisting the US occupation, but not as intensely because the US
has favored the Shiite and put them into power. Karballa is therefore one of the
most peaceful cities in Iraq.
Karballa is now allowed to
police itself; the US only controls the perimeter. However, the US has committed
its share of atrocities in the city. In its wars of domination around the world,
the US frequently uses a horrific anti-personnel weapon called a cluster bomb,
which explodes before it hits the ground and sends out hundreds of other
grenade-like explosive devices. Many of them do not explode on impact, but can
sit undetected for long periods of time and then be set off by an unsuspecting
passerby, often a child. Farmers in Laos are still getting injured and killed
from cluster bombs dropped by the US in the 1960’s. For obvious reasons, cluster
bombs are forbidden under international law, but the US continues to use them.
In Afghanistan, the US dropped cluster bombs and food packages that were the
same color.
During the invasion, the US dropped these gruesome weapons all over Karballa, “Even in my neighborhood” a human rights worker said. He told us about an Iraqi man who worked tirelessly to find and diffuse unexploded cluster bombs in Karballa because US forces refused to deal with the situation. “He found and diffused over 5200 in Karballa” he explained to us, but was eventually killed when some went off while he tried to remove them from a school. “US military officials visited his family to acknowledge his service” he said, “but they didn’t give them any compensation because they claimed the US didn’t kill him directly”.
Human Rights Watch of Karballa (not directly affiliated with Human Rights Watch) was one of the first organizations founded after the US invasion. Like many grassroots organizations in Iraq, they began with no outside help, grounded only in their own experience and their belief in justice. CPT became acquainted with them two years ago when their director passed by our vigil of fasting and praying against the US occupation in a major Baghdad square. Along with documenting US violence like the cluster bombs, HRWK does a lot of work around mass graves. They were the first organization to discover mass graves in Iraq, and have now documented 42 of them in and around Karballa. They said four of them are full of Kurdish bodies apparently brought down from the north, but the rest are from the Shiite uprisings in 1988 and 1991. The US is directly complicit in the 1991 massacres, because they occurred in the “no-fly zones” monitored by US forces. Though the US had turned against Saddam by that time, they did not want a Shiite revolution because the US feared they’d be too powerful if allied with the Shiites of Iran. The human rights worker said that US planes stood down and allowed Saddam’s helicopters to massacre thousands of Shiite and Kurdish rebels. The US not only failed to support this popular uprising against Saddam, but they specifically enabled Saddam to brutally squash it.
“I’ll never forget seeing the bodies, one piled on top of the other” the human rights worker said, “and we will work to keep it from happening again by embodying principles of peace. We are proud to stand side-by-side with CPT as we work towards true democracy in Iraq.”
He ended by thanking us and said “We hope you feel welcome in Karballa, the city of the peace.”
CAMP LIMA
We spent the afternoon at the US military base right outside Karballa. It was remarkably different from any other base I’ve visited. The security measures were very light; they didn’t even check our passports. Everything seemed very temporary; all the offices and barracks were trailers or simple wood-framed structures. The first soldier we met was a jovial black man from Mississippi who was ecstatic to learn that one of us was from Mississippi. He demanded we all take pictures of him and even did a small performance for our video camera. Using the metal-detector wand as a microphone, he said in his best TV announcer voice, “Welcome to FOB Lima at Karballa, home to Mississippi National Guard.”
We had a meeting with the civil affairs folks from this division. They told us about the various reconstruction projects they’re working on in the Karballa area. They feel very good about the work they’re doing and believe that they’ve made Iraqi life significantly better than under Saddam. They felt that Iraqi complaints were largely irrational, “They think every problem is a US problem” one said, “they can’t expect us to turn Iraq into Switzerland in six months”. Since Karballa is a much safer area, they’ve been able to get more done; they said their main difficulty is lack of funding. They listed their achievements; five water stations, some schools, a nursing home, and some sewer and electricity projects.
I was glad to hear something positive has come from the US presence, but one has to question their real motives. He stated them pretty clearly, “We’re trying to improve the quality of life so that Iraqis will approve of the American presence, legitimize the new Iraqi Government, and be less inclined to join the resistance.” They believe its working. “Around 95% of Iraqis are glad we’re here” he said, “when we drive by in our convoys, all the children come out and wave and give us thumbs up. Iraqis have even helped prevent attacks against us.” He was interested in what Iraqis had told us they felt about the US presence, so we informed them of how mistrustful and disappointed many Iraqis are with the US occupation.
We asked him what he and other soldiers thought were the reasons for the US invasion. “There are many reasons,” he explained, “For one thing, Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction, killing Kurds and Shiite. He was working on other weapons, and we may still find some.” He believes that the US will eventually leave; he said he figures there will be fewer US bases every year. “Most of the soldiers are Christian” he said, “and they pray for peace and would much rather be with their families”.
Since
today is Memorial Day in the US, they invited us to stay for their small service, and we graciously accepted. The base’s chapel is a small
wooden building with home-made pews, a ceiling fan, and small Stations of the Cross paintings. A
US flag stood prominently next to a Mississippi
state flag behind the pulpit. Soldiers sauntered in carrying
rocket launchers, MP-16s, and handguns; seemingly odd accessories for a church
but completely normal for them. The service opened with the Pledge of
Allegiance which I hadn’t heard since elementary school, and then we sang
the National Anthem. Backup music was provided by a laptop and computer
speakers. A young female solider read a poem and then we sang America the
Beautiful and Battle Hymn for the Republic. Fortunately for the Canadians in our group, the lyrics to all these songs were
included in the program. We stood as the chaplain read the names of the
seventeen fallen men from their division. It ended with a
moment of silence, and then taps, played from the computer speakers of course.
The
highlight of the base visit was lunch in their cafeteria. KBR contractors handle
most of the base’s logistical needs. “Soldiers used to have to do everything”
one said, “but now contractors do everything that isn’t related to security.” He
said this is good because fewer soldiers had to be deployed, but it’s much more
expensive. Lunch was elaborate. The cafeteria was decked out in a patriotic
theme for Memorial Day, and there were several different buffets to choose from.
I was excited to get onion rings, A&W root beer, V-8, and chocolate silk pie.
Most everything seemed like it had been shipped in from outside
Iraq.
The soldiers were incredibly nice and friendly. They seemed excited to have some new faces around, and were anxious to talk about things other than the war and occupation. It was good to be reminded of how human and good-intentioned these young Americans are. Most were in the National Guard because of the extra income and its focus on public works, none ever expected to be stuck away from their families in a combat zone. I have to remind myself that they are also victims.
In January, members of
Human Rights Watch of Karballa and other associates decided to form an Iraqi
peace group, the Muslim Peacemaker Teams. They asked CPT to lead a week-long
training at the end of January, and we then did a
joint action in Fallujah in early May. They now have a membership of around
20 and two are hoping to take part in the CPT training in Chicago this winter.
Meeting with this group was one of the highlights of my trip to Iraq; MPT is one
of the few glimmers of hope in the darkness of
US occupation.
“They want to make civil war between the Sunni and the Shiite” one said, “but civil war is impossible because we are all so mixed together. For instance, my sister married a Sunni, and we go pray together in the mosque. They push all Iraqis to make war with each other; they even try to divide the Shiite. The US and the surrounding countries don’t want Iraq to be safe because its oil could make it too powerful.” They are determined to resist these divisions. For their first action, they brought gifts of medical supplies and copies of the Koran to Sunnis in Fallujah, and then spent the day cleaning up the trash and rubble from the US attacks. They were amazingly well received and everyone considered it a deeply transformative experience. One said, “We proved, in a simple way, that peaceful living can exist.” Read more about this action.
They’re commitment to peacemaking is rooted in their faith. One said, “We started MPT because we believe that the real spirit of Islam is mercy and forgiveness.” Another said, “I’m no specialist, but I understand that Islam is about the real peace; any section of Islam is talking about the peace, that’s why Salaam Alakium (may peace be upon you) is the most common phrase.” They also believe that nonviolence is effective, “Occupations have all the weapons except the peace, we can use this weapon. In war, only the young men can resist, with nonviolence everyone can participate.”
“Violence happens when democracy disappears” one said, “and the US is using this violence to justify staying. We need to rebuild ourselves by ourselves. We need assistance, but it should be like the assistance CPT gave to MPT. They didn’t control, they only gave inspiration and an example.” We asked the MPTers what they’d like us to do when we go back to the US, and one said, “Put pressure on your government to give the happiness back to Iraq, let them begin reconstruction, and be courageous.”
FALLUJAH: AN UNNATURAL DISASTER
Today, I did what few internationals have dared to do, I went to Fallujah.
Fallujah is completely surrounded by US Forces, the only way in or out is through one of four very restrictive checkpoints. People normally have to wait hours, but since we had our magic US passports, we made it through in about 45 minutes. We did not observe them actually searching any cars, soldiers just held-up traffic and slowly checked IDs. Like Palestine, these checkpoints seem to have had little to do with security and more to do with harassment and intimidation.
Fallujah is devastating to
drive through. There is more destruction and rubble than I’ve ever seen in my
life; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The US has leveled entire neighborhoods, and about every third building is destroyed or damaged from
US artillery. Rubble and bullet holes are
everywhere, the city is indescribably ravaged. It looks like it’s been hit by a
series of tornados; it’s hard to believe that humans could actually do this. I
have a new understanding of the destructive potential of modern warfare.
See
more
destruction pictures.
US troops, Iraqi military, and Iraqi police have an overwhelming presence
in the city. 16,000 Fallujan police lost their jobs after the US attacks and
were replaced by Shiite from the South. The US intentionally sends Shiite to
patrol Sunni strongholds to breed resentment and abuse, and it works. I’ve never seen such dirty looks directed at the passing forces; I guess
in most places people get somewhat used to the occupier, but in Fallujah, the
hate is still very alive. Soldiers shoot
anyone who drives too close to their convoys, which makes driving anywhere in
this small city incredibly dangerous. It is very easy to accidentally turn a
corner and find yourself in the midst of a convoy. The hospital said that around
1-2 people a week die from the indiscriminate fire of US and Shiite occupation forces.
There are horror stories everywhere. We visited a family’s home in a neighborhood where every structure is damaged or destroyed. Their home was full of holes and completely black inside from fire. They said that they’d left during the fighting with their home in tact, and returned to find all of their possessions burned. Three families are now living in this 3-room house because their homes were completely destroyed. Over 25 people inhabit this burn-out shell of a home, including four infants. They were all denied compensation from the US military.
There is the hopeful sight of rebuilding. Some families who suffered damaged property have gotten a little bit of compensation from the US military, however it usually covers less than half of the cost for building materials for a new home. Particularly because the compensation rates are based on the price of building materials before the attacks, and now supplies cost nearly double because of the restrictive checkpoints.
Food
prices have also dramatically increased because of the checkpoints. We talked
with one shop-keeper who said that farmers from around Fallujah can no longer
deliver their produce unless they have a US-issued Fallujah ID. The shopkeepers now
have to go out and pick up the produce each day. He said it takes him around
four hours because of the checkpoint delays. “They mistreat us,” he said, “they
point guns at us and insult us, even the women”. He said that both US and Iraqi
troops search through the vegetables roughly, even dumping them on the ground
and sometimes smashing them. As soon as he’s finished with one checkpoint and
cleaned up the mess, another will ransack his load all over again. This can
happen as many as four times he said. Sometimes, much of the produce rots from
sitting in the hot sun. For all these reasons, the prices have gone up and more
Fallujans are going hungry.
Fallujah has only one hospital with inpatient care. Other clinics and treatment centers were bombed by US troops, and soldiers prevented many people from getting to the hospital during the attacks. Even after the fighting, the US kept the bridges closed which caused several people to die of heart attacks when they couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough. People from the rural areas surrounding Fallujah are also now dying of treatable illnesses because they can’t get through the checkpoints to the Fallujah hospital. One hospital employee said that many patients die when they try to transfer them to hospitals outside Fallujah. “It’s better to take them in a civilian car than in an ambulance” he said, “because the troops delay and search ambulances more.” During the first attack, the hospital became a main source of information for the outside world. So when the US attacked the second time, they took over the hospital area first and controlled what information got out.
Meeting a Sunni cleric was the highlight of the trip. He was a young, passionate man and a quite eloquent speaker. He told us about some of the horrors he’d witnessed. During the first invasion, several families near his Mosque took cover in a home. US troops used megaphones to order them all out into the street while carrying a white flag. They complied, but when they all got out, the soldiers opened fire into the group and killed five. He said one boy had run to his mother who’d been shot, and Americans shot the child in the head. He said he saw a US commander cry as this happened, “but what good were his tears?” he asked, “he didn’t do anything to stop it.”
While
meeting with the cleric, a man told us some of his horror stories. “The
Americans shot and killed my 15-year-old daughter” he said, “was she a
terrorist?” He said the US military denied killing her and refused to give him
even minimal compensation. The US gave him only half the compensation for his
house that they destroyed. “With all respect to you,” he said, “I hate
Americans, they killed my family. My children cannot play in the street, they
shot and killed my sister-in-law while she was washing clothes, and my other
brother’s hands and feet were blown off.” He apologized for interrupting, but
said that he had to tell us because he’s in so much pain.
I felt incredibly safe in Fallujah; the people I spoke with were kind and gentle. They are rightfully angry and indignant at what the US has done to them, but they seemed to understand that it wasn’t me or all American’s that did it. The cleric said, “We are grateful that you come here and share in our suffering and agony, it shows that there are good and human Americans.”
Fallujah is the face of US occupation. It shows how ruthless the US will be toward anyone who dares resist its agenda. But Fallujah has not stopped resisting. It is said that “you can’t bomb a resistance out of existence, but you can bomb one into it.” The unnatural disaster the US has unleashed on the Middle East is horrifying, and we all must resist it.
ARMED AND RIGHTEOUS
Today, I met with Father Douglass, the priest of a Chaldaen church in West Baghdad. He is a very jovial character with excellent English, a great sense of humor, and an exuberant spirit. One of his most interesting characteristics is that he helps guard his church against attacks.
Dressed in all-black with the traditional white collar, Father Douglass modeled his flack jacket and showed us his automatic AK-47 and handgun. He was well aware that it was strange for us to see an armed priest, and he said it is odd even for other Iraqis. “But when it comes time to defend my church from terrorists,” he said, “I cannot ask others to do something I’m not willing to do.”
He lives in a small room that’s part of the church complex, and he said that on multiple occasions he’s had to join the guards in gunfights. The church is surrounded by concrete barricades, razor wire, and guard stations. These were added after the car bombings at Christian churches in April of 2004. Fortunately, no attacker has succeeded at harming his church, but there have been multiple attempts. “Sometimes at night after the curfew,” he said, “a car would try to drive through the barricades and we have to fire on them.” One night, he said he heard the guards start firing, so he rushed out and began shooting at a car, only to realize that the guards were shooting at a different car. He said he felt very silly, and thankfully both cars sped away unharmed.
The church is located in a mixed neighborhood of Christian, Sunni, and Shiite, but most of his direct neighbors are Muslims. “They also protect the church” he said, “whenever our guards start shooting, our Muslim neighbors run out with their machine guns to defend the church.” He believes multiple attacks have been thwarted because of his neighbors’ protection.
Since we were a delegation of Christian peacemakers, we were interested to understand how he justified using violence. “It is a very difficult decision,” he said, “and there are many reasons I feel that it is justified”. Firstly, he pointed out that this is God’s house, and he lives there as well, and anyone has the right to defend their home. He does not see that he has much of a choice in the matter, as he cannot just sit back and allow the destruction of his church, congregation, and neighborhood. He quoted us a saying, “When your hand is in the fire, it is different from when your hand is in the snow”. I take that to mean that different situations require different responses, and this one clearly merits armed protection.
He also had his own views on the political situation and the US Occupation. He originally supported the US invasion because he hated Saddam, but now he sees that the US has its own interests and not those of the Iraqi people. He would like his country to be free of US Occupation, but he’s afraid that US has to stay right now. “Things are at about 98% bad,” he said, “but civil war would be 100% bad.” He believes that the US created this situation and intends to benefit from it, “They will stay as long as things are bad, but if things get better they will find a different reason to stay”. He demonstrates the effectiveness of the US strategy of justifying their ongoing occupation by letting the security situation deteriorate.
He made an observation I’d made, “Sometimes, I’m jealous of the Palestinians. They have one enemy, the Israelis, and clear allies, the Palestinians. The Israelis are stealing Palestinian land and the Palestinians are resisting it and so they fight. It’s a bad situation but at least things are clearer. Here, our enemies are everywhere and it’s hard to tell who is benefiting and who is losing, or what the fight is even about.”
Iraqi Christians are about 3% of the Iraqi population. Father Douglass said his congregation was 300 in 1991, but is now only 100. “During the embargo, anyone who could move out of the country did.” Many Christians had family members in other countries that helped them emigrate. It was such a problem, he said they passed an 11th Commandment, “Thou shall not leave thy country”. He talked about the misery of the 10 years of US sanctions, “It wasn’t only food and medicine that we couldn’t get, but we lost our education because people could only think about finding basic necessities. Now we’ve woken up, but we’ve lost our minds.”
We asked him, “Why do they attack Christians?” and he questioned us back, “Who haven’t they attacked?” He explained that foreign terrorists have been attacking all Iraqis, including Mosques, restaurants, gas stations, and schools in order to further chaos and vie for power. “We have a lot of oil” he said, “which has been a big problem for us.” He believes that both the US and the terrorists are attracted to Iraq in order to try and control the oil wealth.
The oil isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the US or the terrorists for the time being, but Father Douglas is not backing down. He will continue to maintain his ministry and defend his church. May our prayers be with him.
date withheld for security reasons
Today, I met a man who told me he was a resistance fighter. I was surprised that he trusted me enough to tell me this, and he may have been lying. I had a thousand questions for him anyway, but I didn’t want to sketch him out, so I remained casual and tried to just chat with him.
He said he was from Fallujah, and had fought the Americans during their first attack. He told me that American soldiers killed seven of his family members during that attack, most of which were civilians and not fighters. He said it was only Iraqi Fallujans defending their city, no foreign fighters. There are foreigners carrying out attacks in other parts of Iraq. Iraqis believe that it is not Iraqis who attack churches and mosques, these are foreign terrorists attracted by the presence of US troops. Most of the attacks on the occupation forces are native Iraqis exercising their right under international law to resist an invader.
I asked him if he wanted Saddam back, “We hated Saddam,” he said, “and we did not fight the Americans when they came to overthrow him. But now the Americans are just as bad so we’ll fight them until they leave”.
I asked him where he got his military
training, and he explained that almost all of Iraq’s young men are trained.
Saddam sent every high school boy to a three-month military training camp. Then
after high school, around 80% were conscripted into Saddam’s army and received
more intense training. I asked him where the resistance got their weapons, and
he said that just before the invasion, Saddam widely distributed AK47s and
encouraged them to fight. “None of us fought for Saddam,” he said, “but now
we’ll fight for our freedom from American occupation.” After the invasion, he
said a lot of Saddam’s arsenal ended up on the black market, so heavy machine
guns, rocket launchers, and even
missiles are easily available to them.
Also, after the invasion there were “unexploded ordinances” all over the place, basically US bombs that didn’t go off. CPT even had a campaign to try and get the US to clean up these dangerous weapons because children were playing with them. “At least tape them off” a CPTer asked a soldier, and the soldier said, “We don’t have tape”. So CPTers mailed congress rolls of yellow tape in protest of this carelessness. One CPTer told me there was an unexploded missile down the street from us. They asked American soldiers repeatedly to remove it. “They tend to disappear” one commander said, and guess what, it did, and was likely used against the occupation forces.
I asked the fighter if he was afraid there’d be civil war if the American forces left. He said that there may be civil war, but the Sunnis would win (he’s a Sunni) so he isn’t concerned. He said the American troops aren’t doing anything to prevent civil war; indeed they’re only making matters worse.
There is significant Shiite involvement in the resistance (as seen in Nejef and Sader City) but it’s believed that the majority of the resistance fighters are Sunni. As part of their divide and conquer strategy, the US has favored the Shiites and put them into power. Since Saddam was Sunni, most of the high-level government and military officials were Sunni. Right after the US took power, they “de-Baathified” the government, kicking out everyone who had a Baath Party card (which Saddam had required of all government workers). This put many Sunni out of work, including those with high-level administration and military training. The Americans replaced them with Shiite, who Saddam had largely kept out of high-level government and military positions. So the US is basically trying to create a new Iraqi government from scratch. Now we’ve got Sunni militias led by highly-skilled military commanders fighting US-backed Iraqi National Guard troops led by newly-trained Shiite. Was this intentionally set up to fail?
To sum up what I learned from this man: Iraqis are armed, trained, and pissed off at the Americans and their puppet Iraqi government. They’re not Saddam loyalists, and they’re not “foreign fighters”. They love their families, they love their freedom, and they’ll fight occupation to the death.
BORED IN BAGHDAD
In coming to the “Baghdad war-zone”, I expected a host of emotions; fear, sadness, anger, indignation, stress. But I didn’t expect the one I’ve experienced the most, boredom. Along with all those other emotions, boredom is also a common experience of Iraqis.
With a bad and deteriorating security situation, it is dangerous for anyone to travel, especially us. Combine that with limited electricity and it leaves one not much to do. My young Iraqi friends seem particularly distressed by this. Unemployment is over 75% in Baghdad, so young men are stuck in their houses. One young man lamented to me, “There’s nothing else for us to do but smoke cigarettes,” or join resistance groups it seems. This is quite a miserable life for them.
It’s a particularly slow time right now because a lot of businesses are closed for three days of mourning for the 12 Sunni clerics assassinated in the past weeks. US divide and conquer strategies are threatening to plunge Iraq into civil war, so the fact that our meetings are canceled and stores are closed should be the least of our concerns.
We do find things to do. Let me tell you a bit about our day to day activities. It starts in the morning with worship, a time of group prayer and song led by a different person each day. Then a meeting where we discuss the day’s activities and any other issues. There are a variety of daily chores that we rotate through each day. Since the city water is full of bacteria, we boil two pots each day, filter them through brittas and into plastic bottles. We save the water from dishes and laundry and use it to flush the toilet.
Since refrigeration is limited, we buy fresh food every day. It seems safe for us to walk around our neighborhood, so everyday day one of us ventures to the local market. On our way out, we wave to the armed guards at the communist headquarters. In the street, the stench is thick from garbage, raw sewage, and generator exhaust. Most of the shop keepers know us, and wave and smile at us and touch their hearts in sincere greeting. My favorite shopkeeper is an Egyptian man who runs a small store stocked with American goods from the black-market of US soldier rations. He always likes to show me his newest oddities, like Pringles, Cambells soups, and Pace picante salsa to name a few. I’m a personal fan of his “Western Beef Jerky” featuring an American flag on that package. Sometimes he asks us to check ingredients lists to make sure there’s no pork, today I assured him there was no pork in instant pudding mix.
I’m still fairly jumpy when
out on the street. Fast approaching cars and weird looks make me nervous and I jump from loud noises like someone
switching on a generator or dropping something. Sometimes, I think about what I
would hide behind if
there was suddenly shooting or an explosion. There are Iraqis who don’t
go out at all because of these constant fears.
At night, we sleep with mosquito netting around our beds. We’re not sure how the mosquitoes get in, but they lavish in the thick heat and enjoy nightly dining on us. When the electricity is out, we do most things by candle light. It’s kind of funny to see us working at laptops by candle light. It’s so novel we’ve taken pictures of it.
I realize that this is probably the least-interesting report I’ve sent out. Know that it represents some of the least-interesting days I’ve had while working in a war-zone. I’m bored, pray for me.
SCANIA MILITARY BASE
Today, we went out to Scania Military Base where many detainees are taken before they are sent to prison. Family members go there to get information, but have varying degrees of luck. We decided to poke in and try to ask some questions. We were hoping that the soldiers would be nicer to the detainees and their families if a few white Americans from a human rights organization were present.
Scania (AKA FOB Falcon) is a massive structure which is constantly growing. It’s believed that it is one of the many permanent military bases the US is building in Iraq (some of the only things the US is building, and evidence of the permanence of this occupation). The base is surrounded by high brick walls and guard towers, lots of razor wire and several checkpoints. It’s right off a major highway, so the humvee and tank convoys coming in and out regularly impede traffic.
Inside, the soldiers seemed bored but they laughed and joked with each other. The waiting room was pretty empty, only a few Iraqis and several soldiers. Private Nelson from Maryland and Private Reano and Private Peaker from California exchanged pictures of their wives and children; they talked to each other about their loved ones back home, and little else.
There were two Iraqi translators. One with a bandana over his face to hide his identity, and one they called “Lewis”. Lewis was quite chummy with the soldiers, always agreeing with them and laughing at their jokes. Lewis actually lives on the base because it’s too dangerous for him to be seen going to and from it. His wife and children live near-by, but he only gets to see them on short vacations, and even then it’s dangerous. He was jovial with the soldiers, but got more solemn when talking to me. He said the situation is really bad and he doesn’t know what else to do. He misses his family, but knows he needs this job in order to provide for them.
The soldiers wouldn’t give us much information, and it’s impossible to verify anything they told us. But we made our presence known so we consider it a successful visit. On our way out, we talked with two Iraqis leaving the base. One said that he’d just been released four days ago and had come to get compensation for property taken during his arrest.
He said on Sunday, 8 May 2005, American soldiers on a manhunt raided all the houses in his neighborhood. They didn’t find their suspect, but arrested over 30 men, including all four men in his house. He said the soldiers stole his money and gun, one thousand American dollars and half a million Iraqi Dinars. He said they also stole a retirement ID needed for his father’s assistance. The soldiers at Scania told him they couldn’t give him compensation unless he knew which soldier took it or if he got a lawyer.
He said the conditions in Scania were bad. They’re only given biscuits and water, only taken to the bathroom four times a day, and only allowed a 2 minute shower every 2 days. The cells are about 6 x 8 meters and hold 14-15 detainees.
He said he hadn’t been beaten by Americans, but was hit by Iraqi soldiers, and saw others who’d been injured from having been beaten by Iraqi soldiers. He said he saw US soldiers take copies of the Koran off his refrigerator and step on them, and saw an American soldier kick a 10 year old boy who was frightened. He said his hands were cuffed so tight that it still hurts, and he was held that way for six hours.
Now his family lives in constant fear of raids and arrest. The other day, a car-bomb exploded in his neighborhood and they all feared that they’d be arrested again so they got ready. The women put the money under their clothes, and they hid other valuables. Fortunately, the occupiers spared them… this time.
This man was lucky that the Americans only held him for five days and then released him. Over 10,000 Iraqis are currently held in US detention centers, and estimates say around 90% are innocent, detained like this man for no reason and held without charges. Conditions have improved since the Abu Ghraib scandal, though there are continuing reports of abuse and torture and the detention rate remains high. The UN human rights representative said a poll found that over 60% of Iraqis name random detention as the most significant problem they face. Is this Iraqi freedom?
Check out information on CPT’s Adopt a Detainee Campaign
THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY of OCCUPATION
This morning, we met with a man who wanted to tell us about his brother who’d been detained, without charges, by Americans for over six months now. He was arrested when a car bomb went off in front of the restaurant he worked in. Often, when car bombs go off near military convoys, soldiers shoot or arrest everyone around, as if Iraqis unlucky enough to be in the vicinity are somehow guilty. More likely, it is traumatized soldiers taking out their anger and fear on the nearest targets. Do you think this practice deters the resistance or only creates more fighters?
After the interview, we went by the residency office. They gave me a one-month visa at the airport, but I’d be fined if I didn’t check-in with the residency office before ten days. This process has changed repeatedly. Right after the invasion, there were no requirements and Americans could come and go as they pleased. Then it was in flux and CPTers were stuck in Amman for weeks trying to get papers. Then, the newly formed government formalized (and bureaucratized) the process. First, you needed one letter from your NGO, now you need three letters for three different ministries. I, of course, didn’t have everything I needed to get my paperwork finalized. Even though I’m only here for a month, they wanted a paper proving my residency, which means my landlord has to get a paper with my picture signed by the local council, which only meets two days a week. Wouldn’t you know, the local council says they now need a paper from the residency office saying that they need a paper from the council. I think I might just pay the $15 fine and forget about it.
I’m told that this run-around is the new Iraqi government’s attempt to fight the resistance by keeping close track of foreigners. But all the “foreign fighters” have fake Iraqi IDs and would never go to a residency office, so all it does is make life harder for regular people, and thereby fuel hatred for the government.
All this did give me a chance to chat with my landlord. We mainly talked about the electricity. He said that he can’t run the generator all the time because it would burn up, it’s not because he’s cheap. I believe him. He said it’s all supposed to get better tomorrow, as they’ve finished repairing one of the pipelines bombed by the resistance. The resistance targets the pipelines because they want to keep Iraq in chaos and encourage resistance to the occupation. Not to mention, most of the plants are being repaired by US contractors profiting off of the destruction caused by bombs made by other US contractors. We call this war profiteering, and I can see why they’re targets.
The resistance attacks are far from the only thing keeping the electricity poor. In the first Bush War, the US bombed every major electricity and water facility as well as many key bridges; people say the attacks on Iraq’s infrastructure were far worse in that war than this one. While under strict US sanctions, Saddam managed to get the electricity back up after three months, and the most powerful nation in the world has made little progress in two years. There’s no leadership now, our landlord says, people are paid better but they have no motivation to work. Plus, US contractors have been repeatedly caught cutting corners in order to maximize their profits, taking advantage of the lack of law and oversight. It’s clear that the US’s priority is to further destroy Iraq rather than rebuild it. Many factories have had to shut down because they can’t get reliable electricity, which puts people out of work and further in poverty, and only makes joining resistance groups more attractive.
To sum it up, Iraqis are poor, thirsty and in the dark. They’re subject to indiscriminant detention and violence. They suffer intolerable delays on the roads and in government institutions. Is this how we build democracy? Is this how we end resistance and terrorism?
Occupation forces use terrorism to “fight terrorism” and only create more terrorists. We see this in both the Israeli and US occupations. I don’t believe that this is an accident or an oversight of brilliant military strategists, but an intentional strategy used to maintain chaos and justify ongoing occupation. Occupation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, using “security” to exploit, dominate, and colonize.
Shaggy and I slept in, enjoying our day off. Around 1pm, we headed over to his house for an exquisite Palestinian lunch. Shaggy’s family lives just on the other side of the river, a short taxi ride if we could take one of the near-by bridges. However, the Green Zone is in-between our flat and his, and the military has permanently closed the bridge which goes through Green Zone, and frequently closes the two that go by it. On this day, we couldn’t even go near the bridges, we were frequently forced to deter off the main road and go around through narrow and bumpy neighborhood streets.
Today, there were additional road blocks around mosques. Divide and conquer is a standard practice of colonial powers. In Iraq, the US is following the British example by pitting Sunni vs. Shiite vs. Christian vs. Kurd; they keep them fighting with each other so that they are all easier to control. This has resulted in attacks on mosques and churches. Many Muslims go to a mosque to pray on Fridays, so the Iraqi military set up roadblocks and armed guards around some of the mosques. I noted that only Shiite mosques were protected and it was likely Shiite soldiers deployed. This kind of favoritism is a key part of the division strategy.
Once across the river, getting around the Green Zone is a small nightmare. Since it is the center and heart of Baghdad, most of the major roads and highways were built to drive near it or through it, so they are now blocked, held up, or completely shut down. It reminds me of the way the Israeli occupation obstructs Palestinian movement with roadblocks and checkpoints all in the name of security. The Green Zone is much like a US Settlement, permanent infrastructure surrounded by walls, fences, guard towers, etc, disrupting the lives of millions for the sake of a few thousand.
Also like Palestine, disruption of movement is only one of many ways the US occupation forces make life miserable for Iraqis. Every Iraqi has multiple family members who’ve been killed or detained by the US military. Most young men live in constant fear of detention, mistreatment and torture. Combine this with the deaths and misery from ten years of US sanctions, and horrible oppression Iraqis faced under Saddam whom the US put in power, and we see why it’s hard to see the US as liberators.
For lunch, Shaggy’s mother served Dolma. Dolma is a traditional Middle Eastern dish which consists of vegetables stuffed with a spicy rice mix. She stuffed everything, egg plant, zucchini, onion, grape leaves, etc, it was delicious and they made me eat till I almost burst. I showed the family pictures from Palestine and chatted with them in Palestinian Arabic which we were both happy to use.
Shaggy and his brother played me some of their favorite CDs (Metallica and Eminem), and showed me how they’d graffitied their rooms with band logos. Apparently, they used to have a gun fascination; they showed me where they used to stash their AK’s and shot guns, and where they did target practice in their front yard. They got rid of all this after Shaggy’s detention.
Saddam required all young men to go into his military, but Shaggy and his brother were both draft dodgers. They said they went and got the uniforms and weapons, and then claimed to have asthma and never showed up again. They sold the equipment on the black market and then bribed any soldier that showed up at their house.
Shaggy accompanied me home in a taxi cab later that afternoon. Normally we don’t ride in random taxis for security reasons and only use trusted drivers. But since I look Iraqi enough, Shaggy thought it’d be alright as long as I didn’t talk. After a day of riding around pretending to be Iraqi, it was actually hard for me to talk (if you can imagine that). Fear of kidnapping is the one thing that has gotten me to keep my mouth shut.
Shaggy called when he got back to say that there were even more roadblocks on his way home because of a “massacre” on the highway. Apparently, US soldiers and Iraqi police got into a shoot out with some resistance fighters on a main highway and caught civilians in the crossfire. Yet another example of the horrific nature of occupation; we have turned civilian streets and neighborhoods into war zones.
Today was a long and slow day. Multiple previously scheduled meetings were cancelled so we were stuck in the flat. There was no electricity at all, so once we ran the computer batteries and the car battery dead I was left with little work to do. Not to mention it was incredibly hot with no fans or AC.
The most interesting thing going on were the passing US military patrols. Three humvees and two battalions of US foot soldiers went street to street doing “house checks”. Tom observed a group of them going into the orphanage to play with the children, thankfully leaving their guns outside. Otherwise, most Iraqis stayed inside and prayed they wouldn’t be detained, or that the resistance wouldn’t attack the patrol while on their street. A group of children trailed behind the convoy, likely fascinated by the American soldiers. The soldiers did nothing to discourage these curious children, even though the soldiers knew that the children would likely be killed or injured if the patrol was attacked. Perhaps the soldiers think the children act as some kind of human shield from the resistance; perhaps they think the active smiling kids somehow validate the soldier’s presence; perhaps they just don’t care whether the children are there or not. I would have asked them, but if we’re seen talking to soldiers, Iraqis may think we’re somehow associated with the military.
I wish I could give you more pictures of these convoys, but I can’t take them. US Soldiers don’t like having their picture taken and have been known to brake cameras; Iraqi soldiers and police don’t like pictures and tend to shoot first and ask questions later; and any picture-taking immediately marks you as a westerner, so for a variety of reasons I’ll have to rely on pictures taken by others. I found some pictures that match the images I Have seen. View them
Tonight is Thursday night, the equivalent of our Friday night since Iraqis get Friday off. I invited my Palestinian-Iraqi homie to come over and party. This is the before-mentioned young man with perfect American English who spent a year detained by the US. I’ll call him Shaggy because he reminds me of the beatnik character from Scooby Doo. The team agreed that he could crash at the CPT flat tonight because occupation forces shoot anyone out after the 11pm curfew.
Shaggy and I picked up some beers and hung out on the roof smoking the hookah. It was a nice night with a breeze and bright stars. We had an excellent view of the Tigris River, and right across into the Green Zone. As we smoked and drank, Shaggy got contemplative. He wondered allowed what all the internationals in there were doing and thinking. “Probably missing their families” he thought, “wanting to get out of here and go home”. He said that while in detention at Camp Buccah, he couldn’t help but notice that the US soldiers were as much captives as him. He wrote a poem called “Going Home” which he said was equally profound to the guards as to the detainees. I’m continually amazed by the humanity of oppressed people, it is an enormous source of inspiration and hope.
It sounds like Shaggy was quite popular amongst the US soldiers at Camp Buccah. His jovial personality and fabulous American slang went over well, particularly with the black and Latino soldiers he said. He claims to have even dated three of the soldiers, one black woman and two Latinas. He said that his popularity amongst the battalion protected him from the jealousy of other male soldiers.
(warning, this segment contains strong language).
Shaggy worked as a translator at the camp’s medical facility. He said that he’d sometimes be in there alone and liked to play on the radio. He said he’d pick it up and call to another station and holler, “What the fuck is up over there?” And they’d say “Shaggy, what the hell are you doing, you know you aren’t supposed to be on the radio”.
“I don’t give a shit, tell me what the fuck is up.”
“Shaggy, get off the fucking radio, what if someone hears?”
“Everybody knows me, so tell me what the fuck is up or I’m ganna kick your ass.”
He said the soldiers would laugh and eventually tell him what the fuck was up.
We kept chatting about school and music and girls. When I asked him about his love life, he got quiet and introspective. “I was in love,” he said, “but now she is gone”. He said he fell in love with an Iraqi Christian girl that he met in school. They’d had a secret relationship and planned to get married, but it wasn’t to be. During the first part of the US invasion, her house was hit by a US missile, one of the many that US troops fired into civilian neighborhoods, and it killed everyone inside. “My love is dead” he said, and a tear rolled down my cheek.
These stories are always tragic, but it’s particularly heartbreaking to hear a young man’s saga of lost love. It’s even harder for him because he can’t talk about to anyone; the secret relationship would shame both of their families. Credible reports show that the US invasion claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Shaggy’s tragic story helps me remember that these victims are so much more than numbers.
Today, I visited Women’s Will, one of CPT’s closest partners. They’re a women’s peace and justice organization working against sexism and violence in Iraq. They’re one of the few groups firmly and unanimously against the ongoing US occupation (many Iraqis have mixed feelings due to the increased threat of civil war between Shiite and Sunnis). We accompanied them on a recent nonviolent demonstration they organized against the detention of women and children. Iraqi police forcefully pushed them off the street and back into their office. So much for freedom of speech in this new “democracy”.
The founder of Women’s Will is a fabulous woman who was raised Muslim but considers herself independently spiritual. Her husband died many years ago and she has no desire to remarry, she says she is like a Nun and identifies with the sisters in CPT. We met with her to talk about her idea to organize coordinated demonstrations with mothers. She envisions American mothers of soldiers demonstrating in DC along with Iraqi mothers demonstrating in Baghdad, and we agreed to try and help organize something like that.
MY FIRST CAR BOMB
At about 9:45am, we heard a loud explosion that shook our windows and echoed through our halls. We immediately looked at the clock to see if it was on the hour, as that is when US troops destroy unexploded ordinances. Since it wasn’t, we immediately knew it must be a car bomb. Shelia had gone out 20 minutes before to run an errand, and she immediately called to let us know that she’s inside and ok. Emergency vehicles rushed passed our apartment as we headed to the roof to look for smoke. There was a huge black cloud billowing from amongst the buildings about 3/4 mile north of us.
Our landlord’s wife was on the roof doing laundry. Before she ran down to call and see if her husband was ok, she told us that it looked like Firdos Square, one of the major intersections at a bridge going across the Tirgis into the Green Zone. We were planning to go through that intersection and over that bridge to the Green Zone today to meet with a UN human rights worker, and we worried we wouldn’t be able to.
We decided to try the visit anyway, so we met our driver down the street and set off. We began talking about the explosion and noted that it wasn’t in the Green Zone, “No,” our driver said, “the black zone”, and we laughed. We quickly learned that we wouldn’t be able to take the normal roads to the bridge. Iraqi police blocked intersections with random items; metal pipes, tree trunks, random bits of razor wire, anything that would deter traffic away from the bomb sight.
Turns out, the car bomb wasn’t at Firdos Square but on Sadone street, they’d targeted a military convoy. We heard that seven were confirmed dead (the number always rises with time), all civilian bystanders, no military personnel. They say over 40 were injured, and the bomb entirely missed the convoy and only hit civilians. There was another bomb today we didn’t hear, apparently a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Iraqi police station and injured six cops. There are always more attacks when the Iraqi National Assembly is meeting.
Because of the road closings, convoys, and heavy traffic, it took us about 40 minutes to go the ¾ of a mile to the bridge. But the long, roundabout way gave me a chance to see a bit more of Baghdad. The city often goes from really normal to really freaky within a few blocks. While most buildings are standard (maybe a little damage here and there) we’d sometimes come upon major compounds, surrounded by walls, razor wire, and armored guard towers. One was a hotel that housed a major security contractor; another was the Ministry of Education. Apparently, the new Iraqi Government is so unpopular (seen rightfully as a US puppet) that every ministry must be a fortified military compound. This is democracy?
Military convoys make their passing quite the event. They usually include multiple hummers with machine gunners on top, followed by SUVs (shoot me cars) and then more hummers. Iraqi traffic keeps a huge distance behind; apparently these convoys have shot-up many random Iraqi cars that accidentally drove too close. All the hummers have white signs with Arabic writing on them; we guess that they say something like “Stay back or we’ll kill you!”, but it’s a paragraph of tiny letters that you have to get pretty close in order to read. Irony has become an art in occupied Iraq.
In addition to US convoys, Iraqi military and police drive around at high speeds. These are pickup trucks with spray-paint stenciled logos, full of young men blazing hand guns and assault rifles, some in uniforms, some in black masks, who frequently shoot into the air for intimidation. “Mafia” our driver calls them, or “cowboys”. I find this fitting.
Armored helicopters frequently fly very low overhead. I’m told that they fly low so that they’re only in view for a short time and are harder to shoot down, but then of course they often have accidents and run into things. We had some discussion about how difficult it must be for a pilot to choose weather to risk being shot down or risk running into something. We concluded that it’s best for them to not fly at all, and instead go home and play with their children.
We found that the bridge was closed to traffic, perhaps because the National Assembly is meeting. Get this, every time the Iraqi National Assembly meets, they shut down the major bridge connecting north and south Baghdad. Can you imagine the US shutting down major highways every time congress is in session? And we wonder why this new government is so unpopular. We began walking across the bridge as Iraqis are forced to, and quickly learned that it isn’t closed to all traffic; military, contractors, and Iraqi National Guard (ING) vehicles wiz by, often at dangerously high speeds considering all the walkers. The bridge is about a half a mile long, and lined with Iraqi women begging for money, men selling cold soda, and children offering to shine shoes.
This massive fortified compound had been built-up in my mind as this wicked place of death and destruction. I’ve been terrified to go anywhere near it, like I’d spontaneously explode if we drove by or something. Therefore, I’d been fearing this visit with the UN, but I decided it was worth the risk to see this “Green Zone” and meet some of our key international contacts. Once we got there and inside, I realized that this was another exaggeration in my head. The guards and fortresses become scarily normal.
To get to the UN office, we had to go through 6 checkpoints and deal with five different security forces. We were initially greeted by ING and US contractors, then US contractors and US soldiers, then Georgian soldiers outside the UN compound, and finally UN Forces (called blue birds) who were soldiers from Fiji. I can’t imagine being trapped in that place like so many journalists and NGO reps, forbidden to leave by their bosses who are working in offices thousands of miles away.
We met with the guy in charge of the entire UN human rights mission in Iraq. In fact, he’s it. He’s the ONLY representative from the UN Human Rights Commission, and one of only 100 UN workers in the entire country, which includes the Fijian security forces. The number of UN staff only recently increased to 100 from 35. This is all the workers the UN is allowed to have to staff all their projects for the entire country, including administration, construction, humanitarian aid, governance, constitution-writing, refugees, children, and lastly, human rights; and none may leave the Green Zone.
This man is one of the most passionate and dedicated UN workers I’ve ever met. He obviously overworks himself, even though Green Zone curfew closes down his office at 9pm. He is quite frustrated that he’s forbidden to leave, even with an armed convoy. He said he longed to live like us, or to even just go for a walk down the streets of Iraq. He’s even contemplated using his vacation time to see the country he works so hard for. Besides, how is he supposed to monitor human rights in Iraq if he can’t ever meet, visit, or interview Iraqis? The answer is obvious, he’s isn’t. I believe the US has intentionally let the security situation get this bad so that they can occupy Iraq free from international monitoring. This is why our continued presence is so important.
We discussed ways that we could work with him; he said he could give us some contacts and we could provide him with information and interviews from abused detainees and other human rights abuses. One thing he can do is apply pressure from within and keep the US forces and new Iraqi Government on their toes, so we’ll keep the reports coming. On the way out, he commented to a co-worker that CPT is his most important ally in monitoring human rights in Iraq. That’s pretty flattering.
We decided we
might as well walk home from the Green Zone because it takes so long to drive
and wouldn’t be too dangerous if we stayed along the riverside. However, we were
delayed as we approached the Palestine Hotel compound. Private Iraqi security
guards were very confused to see us. They couldn’t believe we were really
internationals walking outside the Green Zone with no armor or guards. They
didn’t really know what to do with us, as they had no procedure for dealing with
internationals at this checkpoint. After about 15 minutes, their
English-speaking white South African boss came out and personally escorted us
through the compound. He offered to give us an armed escort home, but we
explained that we feel guns and armor only make us targets,
and we made it home safely on our own.
I went out with my young Palestinian-Iraqi friend to get an Iraqi-style haircut and shave. I think I look nice and undercover now.
PALESTINE HOTEL
After our morning worship and meeting, I headed off with Shelia to try and change her ticket at the Royal Jordanian office. It’s located at the Palestine Hotel along with some major journalist offices, just down the street from our apartment.
To protect the few internationals living outside the Green Zone, the US military has turned the Palestine Hotel into a compound, and in the process made it look a lot like Palestine. It’s surrounded by high concrete walls, razor wire, sniper towers, and checkpoints. We had to pass through three checkpoints and have our bodies searched twice just to get inside.
A
major street and intersection was shut down to create the compound, much to the
dismay of local drivers who now have to take a roundabout route through central
Baghdad. The entire business district surrounding this intersection has been
shut down, leaving behind only broken windows and boarded-up shops. It’s all
along the coast of the Tigris River which used to be a
thriving fish and restaurant market, but that has all been lost.
Ironically, the journalists the compound was designed to protect have almost all left after it was regularly shelled with mortars. So much for compounds and armed guards providing much protection. While there, we met with folks from Reuters and BBC, who were both astounded that we lived in the “Red Zone” with no armed guards. I was astounded that they think they can have any idea of what’s happening in Iraq while barricaded behind concrete and razor wire, only going out in armored convoys which won’t go out very far and become prime targets for insurgents. We agreed to continue to provide them with stories, even though they have rarely been interested in the ongoing detainee abuse or the positive work of the Muslim Peacemaking Team.
On
our way to the next office, Shelia noticed the line-up of dark SUVs parked
inside the compound. These are known as “shoot-me cars” she said, and she pointed to one that was
full of bullet holes. Assured that no one had been injured in the attack, I must
say that I found some pleasure in seeing an SUV full of bullet holes. We also found an area where the
concrete barriers had murals painted on them.
Kind of an eerie beautification of this insane security.
On our way out, we were stopped by some US soldiers. “Do you have a camera?” One asked, “Our snipers said they saw someone taking pictures.” I took out the camera and assured them that we meant no harm. He said we needed to delete any pictures of inside the compound (of which I had many). We explained that we’re a peace and human rights group trying to document the situation. We began chatting, and he said that he was from Alabama and had a year left in the service. Shelia noticed the ring on his finger and asked about his family. He said he couldn’t wait to get back home to his wife and hopefully make some babies. He said it’s been really hard because he was in Egypt and then Afghanistan and now here, and he really just wants out. I talked to him a bit about his gear, including a high-tech lazar targeting system on his M16 which can be seen a mile away with his night vision goggles. He got a little excited describing it to me, “boys and their toys” I thought. By then he’d forgotten all about the camera which I’d slipped back into my pocket. We shook hands and he showed us a shorter way out; he said we could get past the Iraqi soldiers if we said and American solider told us we could. That shows you the nature of this occupation.
Today was our day off (we get Fridays and Sundays), so I slept in to recover from my stressful travel. Iraqi Christians have church services in the morning and the evening, so at 6pm we headed down the street to San Rafael’s Catholic Church for their evening mass. It’s a small congregation so we three internationals certainly stand out, but we’ve been going along time and are quite welcomed. This service is in English, to serve a group of Dominican Sisters and any other English speakers left over from the years of British occupation. About half the prayers, readings and songs were in Arabic, but I was able to follow along and participate, particularly in the singing which was a bit livelier than American Catholic services. My grandma would be happy to know that I went to a Catholic mass, as long as she doesn’t know that it was in Iraq.
On the way home, I was cheerfully greeted by a group of young children excited to see us. They were thin, dirty, and smiling bigger than I’ve seen in awhile. They hollered at me and grabbed my hands, holding them for about a block. Apparently, their family is homeless and is squatting an abandoned shop near our house. I’ll get more of their story later.
After dinner, one of our young translators stopped by. What’s up man, he said in the most natural English slang I’ve heard in an Iraqi. I was convinced he’d lived in the states, but to my surprise he’s spent his whole life in Iraq. He’s a Palestinian Iraqi who learned English in school and took-in plenty of American movies and music as a kid. When the US i