[NYTr] Dahr Jamail: After Iraq, US Feels Like Disneyland

Mon Jul 23 15:12:01 EDT 2007

sent by Ed Pearl - Jul 22, 2007

TomDispatch via Alternet - Jul 20, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/57500/

After Reporting in Iraq, America Feels Like a Bizarre Disneyland

By Dahr Jamail,

"In violence we forget who we are" 
-Mary McCarthy, novelist and critic

1. Statistically Speaking

Having spent a fair amount of time in occupied Iraq, I now find living
in the United States nothing short of a schizophrenic experience. Life
in Iraq was traumatizing. It was impossible to be there and not be
affected by apocalyptic levels of violence and suffering, unimaginable
in this country.

But here's the weird thing: One long, comfortable plane ride later and
you're in Disneyland, or so it feels on returning to the United States.
Sometimes it seems as if I'm in a bubble here that's only moments away
from popping. I find myself perpetually amazed at the heights of
consumerism and the vigorous pursuit of creature comforts that are the
essence of everyday life in this country -- and once defined my own
life as well.

Here, for most Americans, you can choose to ignore what our government
is doing in Iraq. It's as simple as choosing to go to a website other
than this one.

The longer the occupation of Iraq continues, the more conscious I grow
of the disparity, the utter disjuncture, between our two worlds.

In January 2004, I traveled through villages and cities south of
Baghdad investigating the Bechtel Corporation's performance in
fulfilling contractual obligations to restore the water supply in the
region. In one village outside of Najaf, I looked on in disbelief as
women and children collected water from the bottom of a dirt hole. I
was told that, during the daily two-hour period when the power supply
was on, a broken pipe at the bottom of the hole brought in "water."
This was, in fact, the primary water source for the whole village.
Eight village children, I learned, had died trying to cross a nearby
highway to obtain potable water from a local factory.

In Iraq things have grown exponentially worse since then. Recently, the
World Health Organization announced that 70% of Iraqis do not have
access to clean water and 80% "lack effective sanitation."

In the United States I step away from my desk, walk into the kitchen,
turn on the tap, and watch as clear, cool water fills my glass. I drink
it without once thinking about whether it contains a waterborne disease
or will cause kidney stones, diarrhea, cholera, or nausea. But there's
no way I can stop myself from thinking about what was -- and probably
still is -- in that literal water hole near Najaf.

I open my pantry and then my refrigerator to make my lunch. I have
enough food to last a family several days, and then I remember that
there is a 21% rate of chronic malnutrition among children in Iraq, and
that, according to UNICEF, about one in 10 Iraqi children under five
years of age is underweight.

I have a checking account with money in it; 54% of Iraqis now live on
less than $1 a day.

I can travel safely on my bicycle whenever I choose -- to the grocery
store or a nearby city center. Many Iraqis can travel nowhere without
fear of harm. Iraq now ranks as the planet's second most unstable
country, according to the 2007 Failed States Index.

These are now my two worlds, my two simultaneous realities. They
inhabit the same space inside my head in desperately uncomfortable
fashion. Sometimes, I almost settle back into this bubble world of
ours, but then another email arrives -- either directly from friends
and contacts in Iraq or forwarded by friends who have spent time in
Iraq -- and I remember that I'm an incurably schizophrenic journalist
living on some kind of borrowed time in both America and Iraq all at
once.

2. Emailing

Here is a fairly typical example of the sorts of anguished letters that
suddenly appear in my in-box. (With the exception of the odd comma,
I've left the examples that follow just as they arrived. They reflect
the stressful conditions under which they were written.) This one was
sent to my friend Gerri Haynes from an Iraqi friend of hers:

    Dear Gerri:

    No words can describe the real terror of what's happening and being
committed against the population in Baghdad and other cities: the poor
people with no money to leave the country, the disabled old men and
women, the wives and children of tens of thousands of detainees who
can't leave when their dad is getting tortured in the Democratic
Prisons, senior years students who have been caught in a situation that
forces them to take their finals to finish their degrees, parents of
missing young men who got out and never came back, waiting patiently
for someone to knock the door and say, "I am back." There are thousands
and thousands of sad stories that need to be told but nobody is there
to listen.

    I called my cousin in the al-Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad to
check if they are still alive. She is in her sixties and her husband is
about seventy. She burst into tears, begging me to pray to God to take
their lives away soon so they don't have to go through all this agony.
She told me that, with no electricity, it is impossible to go to sleep
when it is 40 degrees Celsius unless they get really tired after
midnight. Her husband leaves the doors open because they are afraid
that the American and Iraqi troops will bomb the doors if they don't
respond from first door knock during searching raids. Leaving the doors
open is another terror story after the attack of the troops' vicious
dogs on a ten-month old baby, tearing him apart and eating him in the
same neighborhood just a few days ago. The troops let the dogs attack
civilians. The dogs bite them and terrify the kids with their angry red
eyes in the middle of the night. So, as you can see my dear Gerri, we
don't have only one Abu Ghraib with torturing dogs, we have thousands
of Abu Ghraibs all over Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

    I was speechless. I couldn't say anything to comfort her. I felt
ashamed to be alive and well. I thought I should be with them,
supporting them, and give them some strength even if it costs me my
life. I begged her to leave Baghdad. She told me that she can't because
of her pregnant daughter and her grandkids. They are all with them in
the house without their dad. I am hearing the same story and worse
every single day. We keep asking ourselves what did we do to the
Americans to deserve all this cruelness, killing, and brutishness? How
can the troops do this to poor, hopeless civilians? And why?

    Can anybody answer my cousin why she and her poor family are going
through this?? Can you Gerri? Because I sure can't.

In recent weeks I had been attempting to get in touch with one of my
friends, a journalist in Baghdad. I'll call him Aziz for his safety.
Beginning to worry when I didn't receive his usual prompt response, I
sent him a second email and this is what finally came back:

    Dear old friend Dahr,

    I am so sorry for my late reply. It is because my area of Baghdad
was closed for six days and also because I lost my cousin. He was
killed by a militia. They tortured and mutilated his body. I will try
to send you his picture later.

    Just remember me, friend, because I feel so tired these days and I
live with this mess now.

    With all my respect,

    Aziz

Conveying my sadness, I asked him if there was anything I could
possibly do to ease his suffering. As a reporter in that besieged
country, he is constantly exhausted and overworked. I hesitantly
suggested that perhaps he should take a little time to rest. He
promptly replied:

    Dahr, my old friend,

    I really appreciate your condolence message. Your words affected me
very much and I feel that all my friends are around me in this hard
time. I live with this mess and I do need some rest time as you advise
before getting back to work again. BUT, really, I have to continue
working because there are just very few journalists in Iraq now, and
especially in my area. I have to cover more and more everyday.

    Anyway friend, everything will be ok for me. And I wish we can make
some change in our world towards peace.

    With my respect to you friend,

    Aziz

I have also been corresponding with "H," who lives in the volatile
Diyala province and has been a dear friend since my first trip to Iraq.
He would visit me in Baghdad, bringing with him delicious home-cooked
meals from his wife, insisting always that I be the one to eat the
first morsel.

A deeply religious man, his unfailing greeting, accompanied by a big
hug, would always be: "You are my brother."

He was concerned about the perception that there were vast differences
between Islam and Christianity. "Islam and Christianity are not so
different," he would say, "In fact they have many more similarities
than differences." He would often discuss this with U.S. soldiers in
his city.

Yet he was no admirer of imperialism. Last summer in Syria, he and I
visited the sprawling Roman ruins of Palmyra. One evening, as we stood
together overlooking the vast landscape of crumbling columns and
sun-bleached walls in the setting sun, he turned to me and said, "Mr.
Dahr, please do not be offended by what I want to say, but it makes me
happy to see these ruins and remember that empires always fall because
empires are never good for most people."

After several weeks when I received no reply to repeated emails, I
wrote to "M," a mutual friend, and received the following response:

    Habibi [My dear friend],

    It has been very long since I have written to you. I'm sorry. I was
terribly busy. I have some very bad news. [H] was kidnapped by the
members of al-Qaeda in Diyala 25 days ago and there is no news about
him up to this moment. It's a horrible situation. One cannot feel safe
in this country.

When I pressed him for more information, he wrote me the details:

    [H] was kidnapped as he was trying to get home. He was coming to
Baquba to visit his parents, as he does every day. His oldest daughter
who was with him told him that a car carrying several men was following
them from the beginning of the street leading to his parents' home. So,
when he stopped to get his car in the garage, they got out of their car
covering their faces and asked him to come with them for questioning.
People in Diyala definitely know that such a thing means either killing
or arresting for few days. You may ask why I'm sure it is al-Qaeda.
That is because no other group, including the U.S. military, dominates
the whole city like they do.

    We are the people of the city and we know the truth. They
overwhelmingly dominate the streets and are even stronger than the
government. So, there is no doubt about whether this was al-Qaeda or
another group. You may ask how people stay away from these very bad
people. People never go in places like the central market of Baquba.
For this reason, all, and I mean all, the shops are closed; some people
have left Diyala, some have been killed, while most are kept in their
homes.

    If someone wants to go the market, this means a bad adventure. He
may be at last found in the morgue. Al-Qaeda fought every group that
are called resistance who work against coalition [U.S.] forces or the
government (policemen or Iraqi National Guards). Nowadays, there is
fighting between al-Qaeda and other [Iraqi resistance] groups like
Qataib who are known here as the honest resistance in the streets. By
the way, I forgot, when al-Qaeda kidnaps someone, they also take his
car in order that the car shall be used by them. So, they took his car,
along with him. In case he is released, he comes without his car. I
will tell you more later on.

I soon slipped into the frantic routine all too familiar by now to
countless Iraqis -- scanning the horrible reports of daily violence in
Iraq looking for the faintest clue to the whereabouts of my missing
friend

3. Murderously Speaking

In McClatchy News' July 5th roundup of daily violence for Diyala, I
read:

    "A source in the morgue of Baquba general hospital said that the
morgue received today a head of a civilian that was thrown near the
iron bridge in Baquba Al Jadida neighborhood today morning.

    "A medical source in Al Miqdadiyah town northeast [of] Baquba city
said that 2 bodies of civilians were moved to the hospital of
Miqdadiyah. The source said that the first body was of a man who was
killed in an IED explosion near his house in Al Mu'alimeen neighborhood
in downtown Baquba city while the second body was of a man who was shot
dead near his house in Al Ballor neighborhood in downtown Baquba city."

The data for Baghdad that day read:

    "24 anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad today. 16 bodies were
found in Karkh, the western side of Baghdad in the following
neighborhoods (7 bodies in Amil, 3 bodies in Doura, 2 bodies in
Ghazaliyah, 1 body in Jihad, 1 body in Amiriyah, 1 body in Khadhraa and
1 body in Mahmoudiyah). 8 bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern side
of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (6 bodies in Sadr city, 1
body in Husseiniyah and 1 body in Sleikh.)"

What could I possibly hope to find in nameless reports like these,
especially when I know that most of the Iraqi dead never make it
anywhere near these reports. That is the way it has been throughout the
occupation.

On July 8th, M sent me this email:

    Habibi,

    Up to this moment, I heard that one of my neighbors saw [H's] photo
in the morgue but I couldn't make sure yet. Traditionally, when a body
is dropped in a street and found by police, they take it to the morgue.
The first thing done is to take a photo for the dead person in the
computer to let the families know them. This procedure is followed
because the number of bodies is tremendously big. For this people
cannot see every body to check for their sons or relatives. For this,
people see the photos before going to the refrigerator. I will go to
the morgue tomorrow. 

The next day he wrote yet again:

    Habibi,

    Today I went to the morgue. I saw horrible things there. I didn't
see [H's] photo among them. Some figures cannot be easily recognized
because of the blood or the face is terribly deformed. I saw also only
heads; those who were slayed, it's unbelievable. Tomorrow, we will have
another visit to make sure again. In your country, when somebody wants
to go to the morgue, he may naturally see two or, say, three or four
bodies. For us, I saw hundreds today. Every month, the municipality
buries those who are not recognized by their families because of the
capacity of the morgue. Imagine!

In one of H's last emails to me sent soon after his return home from
Syria earlier this summer, he described driving out of Baquba one
afternoon. Ominously, he wrote:

    We left Baquba, which was sinking in a sea of utter chaos, worries,
and instability. People there in that small town were scared of being
kidnapped, killed, murdered or expelled. The entire security situation
over there was deteriorating; getting to the worse.

Now, that passage might be read as his epitaph.

4. Subjectively Speaking

The morning I receive the latest news from M, I crawl back into bed and
lie staring at the ceiling, wondering what will become of H's wife and
young children, if he is truly dead. Barring a miracle, I assume that
will turn out to be the case.

Later, I go for a walk. It's California sunny and the air is pleasantly
cool on my skin. I'm aware -- as I often am -- that I never even
consider looking over my shoulder here. I'm also aware that those I
pass on my walk don't know that they aren't even considering looking
over their shoulders.

The American Heritage Dictionary's second definition of schizophrenia
is:

    A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of
disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities: the
national schizophrenia that results from carrying out an unpopular war
[italics theirs].

That's what I'm experiencing -- a national schizophrenia that results
from our government carrying out an unpopular war. It's what I continue
to experience with never lessening sharpness two years after my last
trip to Iraq. The hardest thing, in the California sun with that cool
breeze on my face, is to know that two realities in two grimly linked
countries coexist, and most people in my own country are barely
conscious of this.

In Iraq, of course, there is nothing disparate, no disjuncture, only a
constant, relentless grinding and suffering, a pervasive condition of
tragic hopelessness and despair with no end in sight.

[Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who has covered the Middle
East for the last four years, eight months of which were spent in
occupied Iraq. Jamail is currently writing for Inter Press Service,
Al-Jazeera English, and is a regular contributor to Tomdispatch.com.
Jamail's forthcoming book, "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an
Independent Journalist in Occupied Iraq" (Haymarket Books) will be
released this October.]