War In Iraq - Part Deux

News from Iraq, the Inside Story

Feb 1, 2008

Well, my friend got sent to Iraq after joining the army back in April. Basic training was hard, partly due to a bad injury which he didn't report because he didn't want to do it all over again, partly due to him being a vegan. They finally got him on peanut butter and jelly.

I haven't heard too much about what he's doing there yet, except that Iraqis are selling them bootleg DVDs, entire seasons of shows for as little as $ 2.00.

 

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2$ of entire season? I get it free. =p

 

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Is he still trying to do the vegan thing? Unless he got put somewhere cushy like Balad or Taji I'd imagine it would be impossible to next to impossible to adhere to that anyway.

 

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I'm not sure, he's probably had to make some comprimises. You know he might not even be able to tell me much about what's going on there. What are the rules on that?

 

spidergoat: "You know he might not even be able to tell me much about what's going on there. What are the rules on that?"

Written, or unwritten? Obviously, he cannot legally reveal operational and unit details useful to our enemies. Effectively, and this goes much further than the written rules- he cannot publicly contradict or embarrass the domestic propaganda efforts of the US government without personal consequences.

The Inside Story will not likely be brought to us by a U.S. Soldier, for a host of reasons. The bitter experience of being a member of an unwelcome occupying force is mostly the same, whatever the context. Your friend is not off on a semester abroad for international studies, spidergoat. He won't likely have a clearer vantage-point than you or I. Let's all just hope that your friend comes back in one piece, and can live with it.

It would be foolish to expect first-time foreign tourists to explain the most intense and portentious of US political sentiments to relatives unable to point out St. Louis on a globe. It's even more foolish to expect our occupation troops to provide deep insight into the trajectory of Iraq. But we do have ready access to a resounding majority of Iraqi voices directing a clear, consistent, and passionate message to us- if we will only choose to listen.

The inside story -the only story that really matters when it comes to the American expedition's final outcome in Iraq- is being emphatically expressed by Iraqis, with great detail, and great emotion, every single bloody day. They are almost entirely ignored by the major US media every single bloody day, because the truth is deeply hurtful to popular American feelings; devastating to the comfortable illusions that our government and corporate media are attempting to preserve; it's an agonizing realization about our ongoing elective sacrifice of our soldiers' lives, limbs, and minds- not to mention Iraqi suffering.

To get the inside story, we've got to go beyond major US media filters, that are market-driven to promote USAmerican psychological comfort. When Iraqi sources from all factions observe how the US occupation is a massive imitation of Israeli occupation, the truth gets largely lost in translation. The US audience cannot easily identify with the 1.3 million prisoners of Gaza. That's indicative of what a lot we have to learn in the USA about the Arab experience, and about the collective Arab and Iraqi worldview. This is an example of the sort of issues that should have been well considered before initiating our Iraq adventure. We went in ill-prepared, and we're not going to wizen up by listening to the frustrations of the culturally, linguistically, and politically ill-prepared that we have sent to represent us.

We're mostly blind to the way we are perceived, yet we've gone staggering abroad in a mindless, bloody frenzy since 9-11, our minds still corrupted with deliberate misinformation, even after it has been exposed as lies. Iraqis can comiserate and identify with Palestinian hopelessness so much more than most USAmericans can begin to fathom. Despite the horrific regimes that divide them, Citizens of Arab nations in actuality have a stronger collective identity than Europeans. We in the USA consistently lie to each other about the degree to which we have allowed ourselves to effectively, collectively become ideological zombies, ignorant of basic foreign realities more fundamental than fundamentalism, and more terrible than terrorism.

There is not a great deal of sensitivity training going on in Boot Camps right now, nor while learning MOS and ROEs, as American kids prepare and deploy to this deteriorating occupation. It is absurd to expect young Americans, who are thrust into the cultural isolation and shock of deployment to a bitterly-resented occupation, to assist in our clearer understanding of what is happening to Iraq. The GI experience in situations like this is a long repetition of boredom and confusion, punctuated by moments of horror- sometimes relieved with instants of human compassion- but lost in a background of destruction and resentment.

Iraqis are screaming at us every day, but our lobotomized post-9-11 American mind harkens to our leaders and Our Troops for the "inside" story- preferably feel-good for the nation.

Young, armed, and up-armored Americans are no more privy to insight into what is happening in Iraq than young armed Iraqi gangs would be, if somehow suddenly transported to sit in hideouts in Mayberry; to occasionally move out to pan their guns around American streets; to kick in American doors, and to pow-wow with American collaborators. It's not a positive or efficient intercultural exchange going on over there, any more than it would be if the tables were turned. The occupation of Iraq remains a mutually-abusive relationship. Both parties require safe distance and time for any understanding or progress to emerge from here. We USAmericans can learn much more about Iraq present and future from the outside- Iraqi voices do get out, all we have to do is listen.

We can certainly look to our troops to validate the comforting assertion that they are deploying and sitting, and sometimes fighting and dying for the benefit of Iraq, and/or the benefit or the USA. But if we want to look inside at where this occupation is taking Iraq, we must get information from as far away from US soldiers as is possible in Iraq.

As with every insurgency and civil war in history, local opinion is the closest thing to a crystal ball. Local opinion is already crystal-clear all across what used to be Iraq, regarding US intentions and results in Iraq. All we have to do to understand where this is all going is to stop listening to the White House, stop listening to the Congressional and media corporatocracy, selling us what we want to hear, and listen to what our intervention has actually elicited. Listen to them scream- and if you don't think they're screaming, then you still aren't listening at all.

We in the USA are not going to see the future of Iraq through the eyes of our soldiers there. The future of Iraq is inextricaby linked not to them, but to the reaction of Iraq to this occupation.

The Iraqi public really can see us much more clearly than we them, and in some cases even more clearly than we see ourselves, when it comes to our foreign policy. They have only to read President Bush's signing statements, better covered in their press than ours, to clearly understand our official intentions: In our most recent defense appropriation bill, President Bush rejected the following exemptions to Constitutional Congressional expenditures:

Sources:

Electronic Iraq: Iraqis on "Success" and "Progress" in Their Country

Counterpunch.org (current main page) Waking Up to the Human Costs: The Iniquities and Inequalities of War -Ray McGovern

General reference:

Various Iraqi Blogs in English

 

Local opinion is like standing and inch from a tree and trying to explain what the forrest looks like. Its accurate to a minute detail about a minute detail of the whole picture.

 

Wrong, desi- It really is the big picture. There is a whole forest of local opinion all across what's left of Iraq. It's the one thing there is agreement about, across all sectarian lines. Iraqis overwhelmingly wish we had never intervened, and they overwhelmingly want us to go home. No Surge, and no protracted occupation will ever turn that kind of sentiment around.

 

Agreed.

What is the 'agreed upon' opinon of the USA by Americans? Ron Paul and Obama agree? Oprah and Rush Limbaugh? You'd get the same opinion in a coffee shop in San Fransisco as Jordan, Montana?

A cause of poor foreign policy is generalizing about nations that are even more diversethan one's own with differences going back much longer and carved much deeper.

 

Yeah, I guess all those millions of Iraqis who risked execution to go vote for democracy just did so for lack of anything better to do.

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Millions of Iraqis were never consulted before the invasion. Millions of Iraqis never voted for occupation. We weren't invited then, and we're not wanted now.

 

Millions of Iraqis want freedom. They were too terrorized under Saddam to even get a chance to vote for it. Evil muslim terrorists are trying to prevent democracy. The Iraqi people are finally coming to their senses and turning in the evil muslim terrorists. We'll finish the job there. Unless a democrat wins the election.

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Iraqis got a taste of freedom. I bet if you had another election they would support our staying there and finishing the job instead of letting the demonic muslim terrorist take over.

 

They want jobs and a normal life.

 

Those greedy bastards...

 

Yes, They wanted freedom. and what did they get ?

A government that is ineffective in preventing militias from taking over, a government that is dominated by one sect only. Still having rolling blackouts from the lack of power. People and children that die every day thanks to DU(depleted Uranium rounds) left over from the initial invasion, and the 10 years of bombing from the last war.

A government and a occupying Authority, that forces the privatisation of Iraq's national industries. Which means that they do not have to hire any Iraqis, with a country that is going to get 50 % higher unemployment. Security Contractors who randomly shoot their way through traffic, alienating the local populace and who do not apply to normal ROE.

This is not freedom. Its oppression,exploitation, anything but freedom.

 

Spider, I recommend looking for alternate sources on the web. Such as Dahr Jamail's blog, and other Iraqi blogs.

 

Here is another one

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

But I have to warn you, parts of it are really difficult to read. :bawl:

 

Thanks. Sounds interesting.

 

April 3, 2008

Well, after waiting for 2 months, it seems his unit is heading out of the base, from "temp duty" to replacing a unit stationed in one of Saddam's bombed out palaces. He was getting food from local vendors, but they started poisoning it.

 

Yea, he didn't pay attention to the safety briefing 'DO NOT BUY FOOD OR ELEcTRONICS FROM LOCALS"
i had that one a while back ago

 

I haven't been able to find anything by her since she got into Syria. Anybody heard anything ?