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.

Religion and Taxis in Cairo

What religion are you in a taxi?

There are several annoying things about riding around in a taxi in Cairo. Including but not limited to; the near misses of pedestrians, the inhaling of all the fumes from all the excessively polluting cars in front of you, the driver himself smoking cheap cigarettes, the traffic, the high probability that the taxi will break down.

But one of the more annoying things is being asked what religion you are by every driver you try to talk to (talk to for the sake of improving your Arabic speaking ability). The question is a multiple choice question with two possible right answers:

A) A) Islam

B) B) Christian

All other answers are wrong. The main wrong answers are; Jewish or Atheist. To give any other answer than A or B is to invite problems.

There is also another religion here that is an offshoot of Islam, similar to Mormonism being an offshoot of Christianity. That religion is considered apostasy by the public at large, and the followers of the religion are persecuted by the government (I suppose much like the Mormons were in the US when they first came out). I think that it is funny that you can see an Egyptian at a party committing all manner of sins, and you if you mention that religion to them, they will shake their head at the mistakenness and wrongness and apostasy of the religion, and talk about how it is not a real religion, like Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. So I like to suggest that the person saying those things should probably make friends with somebody from that apostate religion as they might be roommates in Hell. But that sometimes doesn’t go over so well.

But about religion question by taxi drivers. My favorite answer is:

THERE IS NO GOD YOU SUPERSTITIOUS FOOL

Not because that is what I believe, (I don’t’) but because it will make the taxi drivers head explode, or he will probably try to kill you or drop you off far from your destination.

If the taxi driver is Moslem, and you tell him you are Christian, he will tell you how close the two religions are, and how you can be friends and generally talk about religion asking all manner of questions about Christianity that you may not care about or want to answer. If your Moslem driver that you are Moslem, he will be your best friend immediately and tell you that you are an honest, hardworking, generous, and handsome guy. And he will probably request confirmation that over in America Moslems are also the bestest people that there are.

If the taxi driver is Christian, and you tell him you are Moslem, being that you look like you are either from Europe or America, he will ask ‘why’. “Why have you chosen to make that mistake?”. “You are from the west, you people are supposed to be smarter than that”. “You have been fooled by the lies these people say”. If you tell the Christian taxi driver that you are Christian, he will talk to you about how great it is to be Christian and then proceed to talk more about Christianity than you want to talk about. About when you go to church, about what branch of Christianity you are. If you try to say that you don’t go to church and instead commit a steady stream of sins. Then the taxi driver is likely to ask if you can hook him up with some prone to sin western women.

If you refuse to talk about religion the taxi drivers will immediately assume you are Jewish and thus a spy for Israel.

I am told that if you are a woman, the taxi drivers mostly ask if you are married. And if you are not, they ask if you want to be their second wife.

America in Arabic

أمريكا مؤسسة على فكرة الخرية الفردية

الحكومة تعمل من أجلنا و تخدمنا

الفكرة أن كل رجل هو ملك نفسه

و أن الله لم يعطى أحد قوة على أحد

الحكومة لا تعطى شي لاى شخص ولا تأخذ شى من أي شخص

الرخاء الأ قتصا دى نتيخة حتمية للحرية

الرجاء الأ قتصادى الحقيقى يأتى فقط للأحرار

الحكومة تعرف الحقوق و لكن لا تعطيها

Capitalism in Arabic

انا اؤمن بالرأسمالية

انا اؤمن مهام الحكومة هي حماية المكية الفردية

انا اؤمن أقيم الأ شياء لدى الفرد (الانسان) هي جياته وجريته

الأستخدام القانوني الويد للقوه هو للرد الى العنف أو السرقة

الحكومة ليس لها الحق أن تأخذ ضريبة دخل

ليس للحكومة احق أن تتيح أو تمنع شي ألا أذا أثبتت ضرورة ذلك

في المختمع الحر الشرطة في خدمة الشار و ليست في خدمة الحكومة

مثلا ، وظيقة الشرطي هي واجب الشعب

لا يجب على ألسرطة حيازة أسلحة أذا المواطن لا يستطيع امتلا كما، و لا تستطيع الشرطة أخذ موقف أذا المواطن لا يستطيع

و ليطبيق العكس معنا أن الشرطه هم جنود محتلين أو عصابة أجرميه

We Need to Win in Iraq

9/11 was the result of the containment of Iraq.

Where I disagree with the standard current position of the moderate left in the US is that they think that containment of Iraq was a success, and that continuing that policy was possible.

For me, prior to 9/11 a pull out of the region and let Saddam be was possible, if maybe not a desirable solution.

After 9/11 it was not, it would have signaled our military and moral defeat by the hands of religious fanatics, through terrorism, and I believe that many more attacks would have followed.

From my conversations with locals all over the Arab world, from Saudi, to Egypt to Iraq, a common belief is that their local secular tyrants are propped up by the US. They believe that if we fall so will Israel and their anti Islamic oppressors.

Also, I don't think that at this point abandoning Israel would help US with these guys. We are blamed for their losses in the various Arab/Israeli wars. I have talked to many educated Arabs who have told me that the only reason the Arabs lost was because the US put our troops dressed as Israelis into the war. They would continue to believe that we support Israel, even if we did.

I am going to vote for Ron Paul, and I hope his methods and ideas in foreign policy works, and I think we should cease to give Israel and Egypt the Billions.

And I think that a hands off policy in the middle east will eventually ease hatred of America.

But I don't think pulling troops out of Iraq will do us any good. I think winning there will do us ample good, it will do the region well, and the world in general.
And I think we can win.

Winning in Iraq would for me consist of a free market, a free press, and free elections. (no matter who wins that election the first two or three times).

A free Iraq would be a prosperous nation inevitably, and would be the envy of the region. Also, though religious extremism will undoubtedly be expressed, the majority of the masses would prevail I believe when these things with all their ugliness are exposed, just as anti racism prevailed in the US when the horrors of racism are exposed.

winning in Iraq

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9804

random link for the day

This one is cool about an IRS failure. http://rense.com/general78/defeat.htm

This is my Arabic language teachers blog, and it is interesting http://www.kholkhal.blogspot.com/