The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book. The scene is depicting a Red Cross worker leaving the Green Zone to go out into Baghdad to visit detainees.  

The armored car arrives to take the Red Cross workers to Camp Cropper. As Jenny walks into the facility with her team, she is angered by the very ambiance of this place and the senseless detainment of so many innocent civilians, the vast majority who seem to her no more guilty than the 3000 victims killed in the World Trade Center. Upon their arrival, they go through their usual ritual: speaking with the detaining authorities to present the ICRC’s mandate and the purpose of the visit; obtaining general information on internment conditions, total of interned population and movements of persons deprived of their liberty including releases, arrests, transfers, deaths, and hospitalizations.  After touring the internment premises, they are permitted to hold private interviews with various inmates of their choosing. At the end of each visit, the delegates hold a final talk with the detaining authorities to inform them about the ICRC’s findings and recommendations.

The following week, going through a similar ritual at Camp Sather, a temporary base at Baghdad International Airport, Jenny meets with an exceptionally bright and well-spoken Islamic detainee. A man in his fifties with a graying, overgrown beard, he reminds her of the elderly Hindu man she met in Bali. After learning the details of how to reach his family, Jenny opens a conversation with him as to what he thinks it will take to bring peace to the Middle East.

“For starters, you need to close down your military bases and get the hell out of here. The desire for democracy has to come from us. You can’t use a bomb to force it on us.”

“Just pull out. That’s it?” Jenny asks with some surprise.

“No. Forgive me. I’m a little emotional on this subject. For starters, replace the military forces with peacekeeping forces. I can almost guarantee you that hatred for the U.S. is at such an all-time high in the Middle East that your simply taking a back seat will quiet down some of the insurrection.”“Okay, the new Iraqi government is in charge and the Americans maintain a low presence. Then what?”

“It is going to require America and the world to begin to respect the different cultures in the Middle East. The United States and its allies can never ever repeat what they have done here in Iraq.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” Jenny asks while imagining what he might say.

“They must never again strike out at another country using prevention as a justification for war. Hell, every country could use that excuse.”

Jenny looks up from her note-taking, and brings up the obvious: “Many back home think this war is about preserving America’s oil rights here.”

“That’s a given. If the U.S. just showed the slightest bit of care for the country where they are extracting their resources…like giving back some of the private foreign oil interests in the Middle East to the country where they originated. The U.S. corporations that have come in here to do reconstruction work – especially Halliburton and Bechtel – have abused their privileges, wasted more money than it would have taken an Iraqi company to do the job, and they’ve been ridiculously slow in getting the job done. How long would Americans put up with having electricity only four hours a day, no running water for days on end, and raw sewage running in the streets?”

“Maybe a day. Maybe two. But not for four years. How most Iraqis are living through this after we have brought them so-called freedom is beyond the conception of most Americans.”

“You seem like a caring woman. Maybe you can get someone to listen. I think it is critical that the U.S. turn more responsibility in all areas over to the Iraqis. Train them to defend their own country, cancel all the U.S. corporate reconstruction contracts in Iraq and turn them over to Iraqis. And, for God’s sake, take the reconstruction funds out of American hands and create an Iraq Reconstruction Trust who can distribute the work among Iraqi companies and Iraqi workers. But if any foreign businesses are allowed to stay, there should be a majority-ownership by our people in their operation in the Middle East.”

“I am embarrassed to admit that I voted for this President and this administration the first time. But I have come to understand that their mission was all about what is good for American businesses and America’s access to oil. Their objective was never as humanitarian as I had once hoped and as they have wanted the world to believe.”

The gentleman nods in agreement. “The U.S. can’t play favorites. They must demonstrate that although they will always be Israel’s close ally, they are committed to the establishment and support of a successful Palestinian state as well. It’s that simple. But I’d be surprised if America will ever take such a stand….Oh, and I would also encourage the United States to be a little less forceful in its outreach to offer so-called ‘help’ to another country. Sure, we would have liked to have Hussein taken down, but Iraqis didn’t want the United States to come here because they knew what would happen afterwards. The outbreak of sectarian violence was inevitable. The only ones who didn’t see it were high up in your own government.”

“In your opinion, has any good come from the invasion here?”

“Sure. There is always good to emerge even from a bad situation. The January 2005 election by the Palestinian Authority was a welcome event. And Syrian forces have departed from Lebanon although Syria continues to influence the internal situation through Lebanese allies. The elections in Saudi Arabia do represent an expansion of the process even if women are still excluded. Democracy seems to be taking root in Afghanistan…but not in Iraq.”

“No, democracy is far from a reality here. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many of the people. The way they see it, America replaced one dictator with another. When Jerry Bremer was appointed the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, for fourteen months he had full authority to single-handedly enact laws for Iraq…laws that were self-serving for the U.S.”

“Exactly. No one could run for office without his approval. He disbanded the military, taking 400,000 men out of duty and refused to pay their salaries. He even abolished benefits to war widows and disabled vets who were senior party members. With the apparent goal of removing any remnants of Hussein’s government, Bremer threw everyone connected to the Ba’ath party out when he fired over a hundred thousand of Iraq’s most knowledgeable and distinguished civil servants.”

“He must have known that all were Ba’ath party members by requirement of the Hussein regime. When he dismissed so many professionals – engineers, university professors, scientists, physicians, trained workers, and government administrators – I think that was the beginning of the end for Iraq having any semblance of a democracy.”

“Once the ‘democratic voting process’ began, with only the hand-selected candidates approved and the laws written by Bremer being put forth, few Iraqis could have known that the constitution they sanctioned locked in the most essential aspects of the Bush Agenda into law: the continuation of the U.S. military occupation, offering economic advantages to U.S. corporations, and increased U.S. access to Iraq’s oil.”

“What I’m hearing is that, if the U.S. is to truly help in the peacemaking process, we must show the Muslim world that the West does have a positive agenda to pursue and has the desire to make real improvements in the lives of Muslims.”

“Yes, this would dramatically change the atmosphere in which radical Islamists make the United States a villain. And if the Bush administration continues to pursue setting up a democracy through force, what will they do if the outcome eventually is not to their liking?”

On that note, Jenny winds down the interview. As she prepares to leave, Jenny reassures the man that she will be in touch with his family. Jenny had heard many of these points before but they had never penetrated her the way they are at this moment. Jenny cannot give up the hope that peace in the Middle East is a feasible accomplishment. But she knows it will never happen under her party’s administration. It will take a new kind of leadership with an entirely fresh viewpoint. Somewhere in the near future, she prays that a presidential team will emerge that has the wisdom and compassion to interface with other countries far better than the bungling job the U.S. has done here in Iraq.

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