Report from Iraq # 11: Wherein 25 Iraqi journalists invade my bedroom & I meet an admiral

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By Jane Stillwater (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

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I wish I could have asked a hot-spit question myself, but even though my father had been the head of the fleet post office in Occupied Japan after World War II and thus, theoretically, I should have salt water running through my veins, I just couldn't think of any -- except of course for the one about the navy's choice of designer colors for their camos -- so I kept my mouth shut.

"The Iraqi navy deals with smuggling and terrorism," said the British captain, "but the British navy is responsible for protecting oil interests." Did he really just say that or did I misunderstand?

Apparently the Iraqi navy recruited their crews from non-Baathists at first but now they recruit from everybody. There are 1,900 personnel now -- aiming for 2,000 by the year 2010. "But we are aiming for quality rather than numbers," said the admiral. Then the moderator told us about an Iraqi naval lieutenant who had just been presented with the prestigious "Queen's Binoculars Award" -- and that was the end of the press conference.

Now let's talk about sleep. A three-hour nap is totally priceless at this point and that's what I got this evening, before popping back on the Rhino to Camp Stryker sometime after midnight. It seems all of a sudden that three hours of sleep will keep me going for days.

While camping out in the CPIC media room, I also met an American journalist who was working for a well-known conservative magazine, and he kept arguing about the glories of capitalism and the Surge. "Hey, I like capitalism fine," I replied. "Too bad it hasn't been practiced in America for the last 40 to 60 years."

And of course he asked what I thought that we WERE practicing. "Welfare for corporations. American corporations receive all kinds of welfare. That's not very conservative, is it now? Plus according to a recent GAO report, 80% of them don't even pay taxes." If I had been home in Berkeley, I coulda whipped out my 1996 Intel clone, googled Wikipedia and hit him with the facts:

"The label of corporate welfare," says Wikipedia, "is often used to decry projects advertised as benefiting the general welfare that spend a disproportionate amount of funds on large corporations. For instance, in the United States, agricultural subsidies are usually portrayed as helping honest, hardworking independent farmers stay afloat. However, the majority of income gained from commodity support programs actually goes to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, as they own a considerably larger percentage of production. According to the Cato Institute, the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric."

Then me and the conservative journalist started arguing about Georgia. "Bush and them rigged the so-called Rose Revolution elections back in 2004 and Georgians were then stuck with some weird loose cannon president who loved to bait Russia."

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

But other than his Fantasyland belief that neo-cons are actually conservatives and not just crooks, the guy was really nice and we bonded a lot over having to endure the Rhino ordeal-by-sleep-deprivation together, arriving back at Camp Stryker by 2:00 am. By 3:00 am, I was busy plotting how to get out to the Baghdad airport and get on the Space-A list for a C-130 flight to Kuwait. Then I would have 24 hours at the US airbase there in order to do laundry and get bug-bite medication before taking a bus to KWI and flying to Frankfurt the following night.

In the meantime, I kept complaining about my bug bites. "Oh, I bet you have Leishmaniasis," said the conservative journalist.

"What's that?"

"It's a disease spread by sand flies. You'd better get it treated over here because no one back in the states knows how to deal with it so you will end up itching for the rest of your life." Now there's a grim thought.

The conservative journalist also told me that he had been to Haifa Street in 2003 and 2004. "It's really different here now. The whole way soldiers operate is different." Yeah. That's my point too. Now they use carrots instead of sticks. Carrots work better. Too bad Rumsfeld and Brenner didn't figure that one out back in 2003. We could have saved hundreds of billions of dollars, approximately a million lives and a whole bunch of grief.

"But you can't say that the Surge isn't working!" said the conservative journalist. So I won't. But mostly what is happening here in Iraq today seems to be the result of the Iraqis themselves saying, "Enough killing!" Or maybe it was because I came over here back in 2007 and gave them all a good talking to. Could be. I gots the motherly touch, even despite what my middle daughter thinks.

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Stillwater is a freelance writer who hates injustice and corruption in any form but especially injustice and corruption paid for by American taxpayers. She has recently published a book entitled, "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips For Touring (more...)

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