Ali Baba's Of
Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
06 May, 2004
The New Standard
Along
with an increase in temperatures here in Baghdad, there is an accompanying
increase in tempers where the unfulfilled promises made by the U.S.
to rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq are coming more into focus with each
passing day. Daily life is a struggle for most Iraqis, and it isn't
helped by the brutal occupation or by the corrupt police department.
That I can come
and go from Iraq always makes me feel, well, that I have this ridiculous,
unearned privilege simply because I was born in another country.
Even more, that
I get short tempered and outraged by things that Iraqis seemingly take
in stride on a daily basis... what can I do besides laugh at myself?
While driving towards
Al-Adhamiya, a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad from which Ive reported
several times, my translator and I were pulled over at an Iraqi Police
checkpoint. After a long exchange and much arguing, the car was impounded,
despite the fact that all of the necessary paperwork was at hand...
well, now it is in the hands of an Iraqi 'Policeman' (IP).
The policeman wanted
money. Abu Talan wouldn't pay. We were forced to follow an IP to the
lot, drop the car, and take a taxi back to try to find the IP with Abu
Talans' papers. After much looking around, we spotted him, followed
him, and regained the papers.
Now all we need
is the car, which Abu Talan fears will be looted tonight.
I've often read
the stories telling of how many of the IP's are Ali Baba (thieves),
and simply use the uniform to take advantage of people. It's always
a different thing to run into it. Pretty unbelievable that this occurs,
despite the fact that the IP's have to pass a rigorous, 18-day training
period instituted during the coalition's desperate attempts to hand
'security' back over to the Iraqis before the arbitrary June 30 "handover."
So there is that
privilege thing again -- despite working on horrendous stories about
detainees being tortured horrifically by U.S. soldiers, dealing with
corrupt IPs can still get me worked up.
Forgetting that
Iraqis have to live with this -- and there is no change in sight.
Yesterday driving
down the highway we passed a U.S. patrol traveling in the opposite direction.
One of the trucks carried soldiers wielding their guns in the usual
way: aiming them at all of the passing traffic. The soldiers had plywood
around them as they stood in the back of the truck. On the plywood was
spray painted, "South Carolina Killers."
When do we choose
to stop calling the brutal occupiers "liberators," and begin
calling them the names associated with their actions: Killers (let's
start by using one they choose to call themselves), Torturers, Looters,
Occupiers, Rapists, Extortionists.
Sounding a bit harsh?
I'll qualify this by saying that I do believe the majority of U.S. soldiers
in Iraq are doing their best, trying to do their job and get home in
one piece.
But there is a significant
percentage who fit the aforementioned labels... for I, along with several
other journalists, activists, and human rights organizations have written
stories documenting countless examples of each.
When do we choose
to begin calling this occupation a failure? The occupiers have to hide
behind concrete walls 20 feet high. They are shelled nightly in many
of their bases. They drive the streets afraid of sustaining an attack
at any time.
Reconstruction (what
there was of it) has ground to nearly a complete halt.
We focus on the
torture now, while nightly the Coalition Provisional Authority compound
across the Tigris is bombed. Just last night I heard several explosions
there. My friend Dave calls their press office after our windows stop
shaking to ask them where they were hit. The reply? "We don't know.
We're checking on that."
If they could only
be as honest regarding the entire occupation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad
correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering
the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his
crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to
donate to Dahr, visit The NewStandard.
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