Monday, July 28, 2008

Notes from Iraq

Some quick notes on my first week back in Iraq

PRE-BITCHING
When I first arrived in Iraq I went to the green zone. There were many people working in offices supposed to be supporting those of us in the field. But a few of the people working in the office didn’t see it that way, and I think that they viewed those who they are supposed to be supporting as a nuisance. I stayed in the Green Zone for a few days, enjoying one of Saddam’s pools while I could, as I was told that where I would be the living conditions would suck, and there would be no pool.It appears the Green Zone doesn’t get mortared anymore. Funny feeling that, I almost longed for it. A weird feeling of hey these new shitheads in the IZ don’t rate, they don’t know what it used to be like. I don't want to give the wrong impression it is actually a good thing that it doesn’t get mortared anymore. I just had a funny feeling I couldn’t shake.
Now I am at my permanent or semi permanent post. I am in a large squad-bay type room with about 30 guys with bunk beds, and no privacy. There are three badly working toilettes with curtains but no doors. So, NO privacy. That kind of gets old. But the AC works and in these months of July and August, that is key.
I am not getting much joy of life out of these living conditions on this job. I see as my purpose while here to practice the Arabic that I know and learn more. I talk to the Iraqis on a daily basis. I want to move on to something more involved with not pointing guns at people in the region. I don’t understand most of what the Iraqis say, but I think that I will learn just by being around them and listening. They often talk to me and I nod like an idiot but I understand little. But I can pretty much say anything I want to say in Arabic.
More than the language, I am also trying to understand Iraq, and understand a bigger picture of why and how peace, freedom, non corruption and prosperity exists, or how it can come to exist where it previously didn’t. It is not fucking racial or cultural.
On a side note, I am having a little trouble with Americans, as it seems I am being seen as too friendly with the Iraqis. Fucking drama.

IRAQI FORCES
I work with Iraqis and I talk to them a little about their country. They don’t know much about freedom and prosperity and about fundamentals of free-market capitalism (as the vast majority of Americans don’t also). But they do tend to know who the shit heads are.So it seems like, to the Iraqi people, the best Iraqi forces are the Army. They are the least corrupt, the least likely to be infiltrated or controlled by zealots, and the least likely to steal from the people. They have often conflicts with police.The police tend to be corrupt, and infiltrated by militia, or terrorists. And terrorists and militia often get police uniforms and conduct their misdeeds in those uniforms.The worst of the Iraqi forces, according to the people that I talk to are local forces called Sahwa. I think that they are the equivalent of neighborhood police. It is said that when they come across terrorists with a car bomb at a check point, they will be easily intimidated into remaining silent about it. But they are brave when hassling regular citizens in their regular lives.It is kind of hard to tell for me, as there are many different uniforms, and lack of uniforms. Some dudes just have an AK and a cotton badge somewhere on their t-shirt, and a scarf over their face. They have dudes in woodland, in chocolate chip desert, in plain tan, in green digital, in blue digital, in blue tigerstripe, in tan digital, in grey. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a dude dressed as a confederate soldier at a checkpoint.

ANGRY COLONELS
So when we roll around Baghdad and wherever, we have gunners, who have half filled bottles of water to throw at cars who don’t stop. This is to get cars that are not a threat a chance to realize they need to stop, and attempt to further aid in distinguishing a threat from a distracted driver. I would think the big armored vehicle with the guy aiming a PKM at you would be warning enough, but it isn’t. So they throw a water bottle as a “hey fucker don’t you see me”. If the guy ignores the water bottle then he is probably a bad guy.Anyways, we are at this underpass, a bad place to be, and this one car doesn’t pay any attention to the gunner, and drives right up on us and the gunner throws his water bottle, and the guy keeps driving, he goes past us, and the water bottle hits his car. The car stops and two guys get out, and I get out. I am all alone as an American, but I have two Iraqis supporting me. So, I look at the guys, and I don’t see any weapons, so I wave them off. But they don’t want to go, so I walked towards them and one of them has something in his hand that I can’t see, so I watch it as the one guy extents his hand. It just turned out to be a cell phone.The one guy is very angry that a water bottle was thrown at his car. He shows me his ID and says he is an Iraqi Colonel. I am like, ‘yeah, but the way you were driving and not stopping, the gunner would have been justified shooting you’. And he asks if it is an Iraqi gunner, and that he wants to talk to him.I am like “Hell No”. That shit would get stupid. Once that argument got underway, I would have to shoot both him and my gunner to knock off the silliness.

BACK TO CAPITALISM
So, I was thinking about it. Why are Iraq and Mexico corrupt, and not Sweden? They all three are socialist countries, that give the government too much power. And the root of all corruption is government power. So I think that part of it might be that actual power in the hands of individuals is what leads to more corruption. In Sweden, whether or not an individual gets fucked over by the government is not in a government official’s hands. So no government official can use that power, so the power can’t be bought. Or can’t so obviously be bought.One of the reasons why Iraq is not beacon of freedom peace and prosperity after our messy involvement, I think, is because most in our own government don’t understand freedom and capitalism. The Army leadership, and the State Dept, are a bunch of authoritarian socialists. Even those that think that they are conservatives are mostly not.They don’t understand that are country is free BECAUSE of the limitations on them, not in spite of them. We come to rid the Iraqis of an evil dictator and to help them achieve freedom and prosperity. To be the only nation in the region that is free and prosperous. (So we come here, and we forbid porn, and alcohol, and sex (only of the straight variety), to Americans here. Something I associate more of the Saudis than of freedom) And we use our troops to confiscate weapons, and to patrol the border to stop smuggling (mostly of gasoline). There is no crime of smuggling in a free nation I think.Mexico and Egypt nominally have elections, and they are not free and prosperous. Israel has elections, and we sure as fuck don’t want Iraq to be another Israel.We come here with ideas of freedom and prosperity for Iraqis. But we take away weapons from citizens? You are not a free man if you are not allowed to defend yourself, WE of all people should know that. So citizenry does not have weapons, only the unapproachable American army, and the almost as unapproachable Iraqi Army has weapons. And the corrupt police. So who can the citizens turn to when they are threatened by terrorists and criminals (here often one and the same). The only people who’s ear they have is the militias. Most of the citizens hate the militias. But who else are they going to turn to?Now the Iraqi government is strong.It seems yes we HAVE won this war.The Iraqi government is strong, and they are turning to fight the militias. And they probably will win, but if they don’t fill the void that the militias fill another militia will have to grow to fill that void. I think that before the when the Iraqis said that the American military needed to stay, it was because they were afraid of getting overrun by other forces. I think now, they just like the money that comes with the military.These are my notes from my observances of my first week back.Many things could change.

MORE COMPLAINING ABOUT OUR GOVERNMENT BEING UN-AMERICAN
- I don’t think the US Government should be allowed to prevent anyone, specially US Citizens from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.
- Why is it ok to prevent men and women from living together, but not ok to prevent gays from living together?
- Civilians should not have less rights than the military. It should be the contrary.