Open Letter to a Craven Reporter in Iraq
Dahr Jamail,
I'm an independent reporter in Iraq, on assignment for a U.S. magazine (as well as a Huffingtonpost.com blogger). I've just come off a three-week civilian tour of Anbar Province, living with sheiks and Iraqi civilians, trying to get a feel for the people that will be taking power as the U.S. pulls out (see article). I just read your piece about Sheik Aifan Sadun, the "Teflon Don" of Fallujah. I've researched similar figures, in Haditha, Bagdadi, Hit and Al Qaim, and I saw many of the same things you did. But I've come to very different conclusions. That, I believe, is because you had a pre-existing agenda you were determined to conform evidence to (i.e., war is bad, the U.S. is waging a war, so whatever it's doing in Anbar is bad); and because you're a coward.
The U.S. is an empire and the Iraq debacle is evidence of 21st century imperialism, no doubt. I still don't think we should be here. But that debate became passé six years ago. Now it's a question of how soon the U.S. gets out and what happens before and after it does. I've met too many good and decent people here to write this place off, smart and hard working Iraqis that want and deserve a first-world existence.
As with Sheik Sadun, the man I studied in Haditha--Sheik Mohammed Hussein Shaffir--has foibles and flaws; he's involved in at least one sideline of organized crime, probably several. But I actually took the time to talk to the Marine Corps about their support of him (as well as the citizens of Haditha, its business leaders, the U.S. State Department, Iraqi politicians, the Iraqi police, et al.). What I realized, after some unbiased investigation, is that the players being prepped to take power in Anbar are in the positions they are for some very pragmatic reasons--namely they're still alive and they can kill terrorists (thousands of their counterparts have been assassinated).
You overlook an essential point: this place is still a fucking war zone, you ignorant cur. Fallujah and Anbar are just out of an internecine civil war/insurgency (if it's indeed finished), that's followed a destructive invasion, which came on the heels of 12 years of debilitating international sanctions and 30 years of repressive authoritarian rule. It's not a bastion of fucking Rotary Club nominees. When you pick from an attenuated (and flawed) lot, you take what you get--that's a simple law of nature.
When war comes (and to repeat, we're well beyond the point of talking about whether that war was just or not) anybody with a pot to piss in picks up--with their pot and all their belongings--and moves away; in this case to Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Those left behind are generally not the richest or the best educated of the lot. They are the fighters and the scrappers--the survivors. When it comes time to put the pieces back together, it's going to be those who stayed--and who are still standing--that lay down the first blocks in the new foundation.
The people with money will eventually come back, with their pots to piss in and all their wealth and education--and will eventually be incorporated back into the social structure (I'm a Marxist, so I figure they'll probably end up running it, as they always do). But they're not going to come back till the violence is gone (and even a couple of years after that). So ironically, it's the plebes--those survivors lacking celebrated family names, abbreviated titles or BMWs--who fought so hard for the security that will afford the patricians their return (men like Mohammed Shaffir and probably Aifan Sadun).
Those scrappers are often brave, but they're survivors first; and in a conflict as dirty as a religion-on-religion civil war, they're often tarnished. It's these characters--and the tribe (I don't care how much the military likes or dislikes a particular front runner, if his tribe is the strongest and he's its sheik, he's going to be the area's leader)--that will control the government until normalcy resumes. How long will that take? Who's to say? I couldn't see it taking less than ten years.
Fallujah was obliterated in 2004 (the way the process was explained to me--from both sides--the U.S. and Iraqi armies evacuated the city before demolishing it, telling anybody that stayed they would be considered combatants), meaning it's five years beyond its cataclysm. The city has come a long way in that time (a contingent of executives from one of its radio stations swore to me it's now one of the safest cities in Iraq). I'm willing to bet that in another five years--progressing at the current rate--it will be considered something close to normal again. In the meantime, things are going to look strange and probably seem hopeless from some points of view (look at the example of Spain's tumultuous transition from totalitarianism to democracy, in the early 1980s).
What is it you expect of the Marine Corps, anyway? Should it be assassinating the existing power figures and replacing them with U.S. minions? Because that's about the only option I see. (I've also studied a case in which the Marines had a bad apple removed in Hit--and they employed a smart, democratic process, involving local leaders). You indicate the Marines are supporting Sheik Sadun, but did they pick him? In the cases I've studied, there have been a limited number of aspirants, players that could actually hold power in their region, and the Corps carefully decided which one to back (based a priori on the player's ability to stay alive and having a lot to do with the strength of his tribe).
Sheik Mohammed Shaffir is also a Colonel, in charge of the Provisional Security Force (PSF) in Haditha, and he's been shot seven times on three different occasions. I've walked through the rubble of the five houses he used to own, which Al Quaeda bombed to bits. I didn't get to meet his dead brother; nor the dozens of fathers, sons, uncles and cousins of his PSF soldiers that have been killed by Al Quaeda. These people, as I'm sure is the case with the sheik you've excoriated so bravely in print, have sacrificed in ways you and I will probably never understand (did you talk so disparagingly to the sheik's face, or when he was feeding you or providing for the security that kept your head attached to your shoulders?).
If you talked to the military you'd find they have a very simple plan: security before all else. And talking to a Corporal or Sergeant as you indicated you did (to get your clever Teflon Don lede) was something like talking to the plumber at City Hall for an understanding of the mayor's new financial policy. As a journalist, criticizing military policy without talking to the military is completely incompetent. But with you, it goes deeper. You hide behind political artifice to lob your mines of pre-conclusion, like a craven wretch. And really, I think that goes to the solid core of the dregs of the problem. You're not a coward merely because you're afraid to seek the truth when it might not conform to your views ... rather your chickenshit views are shaped by the fact you're a coward.
I bet you were one of those kids in high school who got the shit kicked out of him by bullies. You probably developed some deeply seated complex for power and aggression by the time you were a sophomore, and now you rail out blindly against all exhibitions of it. The irony here is that you and I probably agree on some overarching premises. This war has ultimately been waged for the same reasons all wars are waged--natural resources and geopolitical advantage; we probably see eye-to-eye there. But grow some balls, Dahr; be more honest--and brave--in the future.
Nearly every American soldier on the ground--no matter how misguided vis-à-vis the underlying motivations that brought the U.S. to Iraq--is here because of a sincere and genuine desire to help; none of them, I wager, have come to further an empire. Whether it be to fight against terrorism so people back home feel a little safer in skyscrapers, or to relieve a weary Iraqi population of a dictator, they're here for honorable reasons; just as is the case with the majority of those Iraqi soldiers (who still have targets on their foreheads). Which makes your fink agenda a slap in the face to about a million people who have fought and died and lost legs, brothers, and lots of blood in the hope of making something as simple as a secure place to live.
The military has been surprisingly forthcoming with me and all I had to do was ask. Marine Corps Colonel Patrick Malay sat with me on three different occasions, for long discussions about security in his area of operation in Anbar. One thing I learned quickly is that the military's officer corps is filled with the best of America's minds--kids that aced their college entrance exams, were the captains of their ball teams, and had to be nominated by senators to go to the schools they did. These are the guys (along with their much more experienced superiors) that are deciding strategy--and they're fucking smart. I was allowed to sit in on a couple of their high level briefings--again, all I had to do was show some kind of aptitude for objectivity--and I can tell you their comprehension of the situation on the ground is apt, their thinking clever, and their intentions centrally wrapped up with the Iraqi people.
At the heart of it all, they're smart enough to be pragmatic. The first thing Malay told me is that we need to drop bullshit Eurocentric pretenses. Iraq is not America, nor even Europe, and it never will be. It will have a democracy, he said, but it will be an Arab one, likely Muslim, and the tribe will be a central component. Realpolitik is at the crux of the Marines' policy. The Corps knows that to win a modern guerrilla conflict, it has to win the hearts and minds of the people. To do that, it needs to clear an area of combatants, hold it (keeping the area clean) and build (i.e. give the people viable options for work and self support).
As part of that thinking, the Corps considers GDP--its term for an area's traditional sources of revenue--a crucial piece of the puzzle. As Malay pointed out, in northern, eastern, and southern Iraq, the GDP has traditionally been oil. In western Iraq there is no oil. For eons, the GDP there has had something to do with smuggling (largely the oil that's been pulled out of the ground in other parts of the country). Malay doesn't strike me as a fan of smuggling or smugglers (in fact, given his stern bearing and Colonel-like thinking, he probably abhors it more than most). But he knows that a war torn country isn't going to be reconfigured on the rosy, utopian fantasia of liberals and "independent" journalists still trying to work through the ass-whoopings they suffered in high school.
A people has to be able to sustain itself, that's crucial to military strategy. And like it or not--and the Marines I talked with (especially the junior Marines) don't like it at all--Anbar is going to have smuggling in its future; just as it did in its past (and if a homegrown repressive dictator couldn't staunch it, why should we think a foreign superpower can ... or that it would even want to re-write the region's ethical code). The Marine brass has incorporated that bit of realpolitik into its policy in Western Iraq--it knows there will be less than palatable characters in Anbar who will necessarily be a part of the re-emerging political scene. And part of the relationship with them will involve money--as have the millions (perhaps billions) of dollars in micro-grants and micro-loans I've seen distributed to woman's groups, trade groups, small business owners, schools, libraries, mechanics, shepherds and on and on.
The military's policy is designed from the bottom-up on security. The plan is simple--so simple (in theory), it can't fail. Security will bring outside investment, which will thereby enhance existing security, which will bring more investment, further enhancing security, and so on. It's uncomplicated and it's already working. The lynchpin is security. The people of Anbar want it desperately (I lived with these people for most of the past month, and I can't tell you how desperately they want it) and they need it to be able to rebuild. Men like Shaffir (and probably sheik Sadun) can bring that security. They are part of a small cast of men that can take on the military's grand contract (i.e. "I will bring peace") and guarantee delivery.
I'm not saying Shaffir should be Prime Minister. And the Marine brass I talked to didn't think he would be a leader in Anbar, forever. The progression is, in fact, very natural. Security is achieved by men like Shaffir and then, through the democratic process (and ironically, he's the only shot they have at a democratic process in the first place), society can decide to keep him around with his foibles, tell him to clean them up, or just find another leader. First comes the security--and if you want security in a world where the good people are all scarred or dead--you don't hire Alex fucking Keaton.
You hire somebody who can stand up against an enemy that's become the enemy of the people, as Al Quaeda has (the debate over who is and isn't a terrorist is for another time and place). The fact is, men like Shaffir and the sheik you lampooned stood up at a parlous time (for whatever motivations, honorable or venal) and went toe to toe with a baleful brood of characters (foreigners, fanatics, decapitators and the virulently uneducated)--and the people haven't forgotten all that they've given.
Are they criminals? Yes, they are. Should they be scrutinized? Of course. But they're also heroes to many, and widely viewed as the saviors of their small towns and neighborhoods. And, perhaps more importantly, they continue to kill terrorists--men Iraq has listed as Al Quaeda operatives. The fact you, a sniveling coward and ankle-biter hiding preconceived intentions behind putative journalism, are taking pot shots at them appalls me.
Due in part to them, mothers are no longer worried their daughters will be unwillingly pimped out to the unsightly foreign reprobates that came here with criminal networks, in the name of Islam, toting guns and all the vagaries of death. People are building houses (tons of them), sharing chai in neighbor's diwans, and getting down to the brass tacks of figuring out how the hell to rebuild infrastructure that was already neglected and miserably dilapidated before it was bombed to pieces. In a way, Anbar is exactly where it should be upon waking from the nightmare of civil war--fucked up.
The crucial fact is the state of fucked-up is moving in a positive direction and doing it rapidly. Just two years ago, the country's top politicians were worried about making it to work alive. Today, they're setting up anti-corruption networks and guilty politicos are nervously looking over their shoulders, realizing that as the violence drops off, so too does their cover. The people of Anbar are leaving their houses again and the markets are full. I've shopped in them.
The heart of the problem in all of this isn't only with the people of Iraq, it's also with Americans in this age of rapid and uncensored hydra-headed media--and the fact anybody can print anything. The threat there lies in the fact that 80-percent of people in society are grazers (and you can check Chomsky on this, Colonel Malay, or anybody who's served time); non-thinkers that only want to be herded and told what to do. It's those people who read your half-truths online and don't realize you're "independent" for a reason.
I'm phobically allergic to the conservative Republican types the military is rife with, but I've only been in country four months and already I hate liberals. There's plenty of ugliness to report in Iraq (as there are thousands of stories of hope and headway)--and the U.S. military certainly isn't beyond reproach. Nobody's telling you to report on one side or the other. But manipulating the truth because of your own personal biases is wretched and works in the face of progress. The other end of the political spectrum disregards you, Dahr, and now I know why. I thought it was because you're a liar--but you aren't. You don't have enough backbone to be a liar. You're a craven obfuscationist, intent on promoting your agenda at the cost of a menagerie of much braver men and women.
... s.d. liddick
For more observations from Iraq, go to sdliddick1.shutterfly.com/
1 comment:
Excellent objectivity in this letter. Just the thought of a freelance anything in Iraq tells you how successful we were there.
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