With the bombing of the Iraqi Parliament on April 12th, my thinking about war in general and this war in particular changed radically. This freaking adventure isn't fun any more.
Be careful what you pray for. Every single day of my life, I get up in the morning and pray that I will be able to do as many good deeds as possible that day. And then I add, "And have fun doing it too." Well, this invasion/war/occupation/police action/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Bush blunder (or whatever it is) isn't fun any more. It stopped being fun for me at around 2 pm yesterday afternoon.
I had gone to the Baghdad convention center yesterday to see if I could find my two new Parliamentarian friends. They weren't there so I left. Had they been there, we might have talked for a while and we might still have been there when the suicide bomber blew himslef up a short time later. Apparently, he blew himself up only about three or four tables away from where we had been sitting the day before. We could have been injured or killed. But that didn't happen. End of story.
But here is another story about yesterday – which, for security reasons, I was asked not to tell at the time. But I can tell it now. After I left the convention center, I then went over to the CSH – the Combat Support Hospital – and took a tour. The public affairs officer was wonderful and gave me a complete tour of the facility. "The wounded soldiers are medi-vac-ed to the CSH by helicopter." Then they are triaged at the ER and sent upstairs to the ICU or the operating rooms. I met doctors and nurses and saw a bunch of stuff like the sterilization room, the blood bank and the chapel. It was a fabulous hospital. It was a great tour. According to the PAO, "Our staff is always calm, collected, professional and proficient despite whatever challenges they face." I believe it. These guys look like they are ready for ANYTHING!
At one point, however, a middle-aged Iraqi man with blood on his face came in through the front door. "Sometimes civilians arrive here for treatment," said the PAO, "and we treat them. It's not all that common but it does happen." We both thought nothing more about it. Until the NEXT middle-aged Iraqi man appeared with blood on his face and hands. And then there was another. And another. Good grief! What is going on here!
"The Parliament has been bombed! The Parliament has been bombed!" someone sobbed. And then suddenly we were in the mix. The injured started pouring in. The CSH went into high gear, proving its worth once again as one of the best trauma centers in the world.
You cannot imagine the hell that ensued. Soon the corridors and examining rooms and operating theaters were filled with gurneys with bleeding Parliamentarians on them. "How many women were injured!" I screamed. "Where are they! What do they look like!" Three women were injured. I raced to look at them. They were not my friends. I was happy. Sure I was happy. But my heart was also breaking for these others.
One Parliament member, a woman, a younger woman, wrapped in blankets, turned her terror-filled eyes toward me. Her face streamed with blood. I looked into her eyes as deeply as I could and whispered, "I will perform du'a for you, Sister," and pantomimed the universal Muslim gesture for prayer. God, I hope that my futile gesture did some good.
Doctors and nurses came and went. The gurneys piled up in the hallways. They cut the clothes off the victims. One man's face was completely blackened from the collar-line up. I hoped that somehow it was just blackness from powder and not from burns. Another man's hand was badly injured and laid limply on his chest while he was strapped with IVs.
And then it hit me. "War is Hell." War isn't some stupid little thing that someone playing at President declares (with or without the approval of Congress) so that he can fatten his Swiss bank account. War is your worst nightmare. End of story. "Lighten up, Jane."
So last night I was finally gonna leave the Green Zone and take the Rhino – and armored transport vehicle the size of a house – out to Baghdad airport and start going home. But guess what? Even THAT didn't happen! I can't even get to the Red Zone on my way home! I'm doomed to stay here forever. Like that old Kingston Trio song about Charlie who was stuck on the MTA, I may "never return"!
But that's not the point. What happens to me or doesn't happen to me doesn't matter. What matter is this: People are being KILLED over here folks. I don't CARE who started it. I don't CARE who's to blame. I don't CARE who the good guys are or who the bad guys are. I JUST WANT IT TO STOP. To stop here. To stop in Israel/Palestine. To stop in Darfur. I want man's inhumanity to man to STOP. I don't want to see my friends who are American troops die. I don't want to see my friends in the Parliament die. I want this bloody nonsense to STOP.
And violence is never prevented by the use of more violence. Never.
Last night I called a cell phone number of an Iraqi friend. "I can't talk now," he said. "I'm walking to my home. I can't be heard speaking English on the street." There you have it, summed up in a few words. On the streets of Baghdad, speaking English can get you killed. Hell, on the streets of Baghdad, ANYTHING can get you killed.
What do I propose as a solution? Edmund Burke said it best. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." There are six billion people alive on the planet today. Of all those people, surely a majority of us are not in the killing business. It's time for the rest of us to put our "boots on the ground". Enough! Enough killing. Enough war. It's time for the human race to evolve.
PS: After my experience at the CSH, I started seeing the Green Zone in a whole new light. Before this, I had seen it as a small bit of America plopped down in the middle of Iraq, where you could get pumpkin pie at the dining facility and watch America's Next Top Model on TV. Now I see that it too is a war zone and that every day people here also deal with the ever-present possiblity of sudden death.
PS: I got some schemes up my sleeve to get out of the Green Zone. I could always say something in my articles that are against the ground rules and then they would throw me out – but I don't want to do that. I could develop a mysterious disease and get med-evac-ed out. I could go on strike and walk around the press room with my fist raised, chanting, "Attica! Attica! Sal si Puedes! We shall overcome!" Or I could whip out my REAL secret weapon – my dirty laundry. I could stop taking showers and keep wearing yesterday's clothes. That oughta do it.
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 Today's Middle East". According to Ms. Stillwater, "It's a fabulous and entertaining book. I loved writing it. And I hope that you will love reading it too." It's available at http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719 or you can special order it at any independent bookstore.
I am sorry that your epiphany about war had to come in the way it did.
I am thankful that your horrendous experience of the last few days brought such an epiphany against war--any war-- home to you. I am also thankful that you are safe and i pray that you continue to be safe and find a way out, back home.
My epiphany against the war came years ago when, while working for a Refugee Receiving Agency, I saw the paintings of a Vietnamese Artist's rendition about war. Up to that point, art for me, had been about beauty. He brought, through his paintings, and in a real palpable way the horrors of war--a horror which I experienced through his paintings. You have experienced it through your own real life lense.
These are experiences that the Bushes do not seem to be touched by. They seem to be living in a fantasy world of heroes--such as Poppy's made up FLY BOY hero story--which denies his cowardly act of bailing out of a plane without even trying to rescue his two crew in that plane.
NO MORE BUSHES. NO MORE WARS! Thank you for your epiphany and thank you for your article.
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teresa simon-noble (56 articles, 17 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 10:00:52 AM
From the intial rush to the inevitable revulsion, any thinking, feeling American capable of empathy can relate to your reactions. You see and speak for all of us.
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Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 10:39:04 AM
We are told that only yesterday a suicide bomber, reportedly a member of al-Qaida, walked into a cafeteria in the Green Zone of Baghdad, and blew himself or herself to bits, killing and injuring numerous others. Yea....and my mom's banjo playing poodle says the rosary each morning just before he sits down for tea and cookies.
Ever noticed the poor quality of pictures taken of bank robbers by the bank's surveilance cameras? Ever think to yourself, "Surely, in today's world there's better surveilance technology than that!"? Unless there was a state-of-the-art, ultra high speed movie camera pointed directly at a suicide bomber, and unless the film was not damaged by the blast, it would be absolutely impossible to soon tell if the explosion came from beneath someone's shirt, or if the bomb was hidden inside a briefcase left nearby. Even if you were standing at a safe distance, able to watch someone walk across the room in which there was at that moment an explosion, you would not be able to honestly say that the bomb went off from beneath that person's shirt. Again, it's possible that the bomb went off from a nearby briefcase, or perhaps from an attachment beneath a nearby dining table. Your eyes would not be able to see any of the details of what happened at the moment of the explosion.
It's important to remember that such explosions are instantaneous and entirely undefined to the human eye. In a milli-second the entire area is overtaken by a bright flash, the entire area becomes a loud, chaotic, high-pressured blurr in which there is fire, smoke, dust, and all sorts of high speed, airborn debris. This would hold true whether the bomb was strapped to a human or was hidden in a briefcase. So again, unless yesterday's event was filmed by a well protected, ultra high speed camera it would be impossible to soon say with certainty that the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber. ...never mind that we are now being told that al-Qaida takes credit for the murderous deed. Why should we believe that the event was caused by a suicide bomber and that al-Qaida had anything to do with it? Does Cheney & Co. deserve our trust when it comes to such reports? Could Cheney & Co. possibly stand to gain something by staging such events, themselves? In light of what happend as a result of 9/11, to ask it is to answer it.
At this late date....having watched Cheney & Co. conduct this lie-based, deliberately protracted, fortune-shifting, power-grabbing invasion and occupation....aren't we fools to not doubt most anything they say? Surely, at this late date we ought not make the mistake of believing reports of suicide bombers, it matters not whether the explosions took place inside the Green Zone or if they took place in a public market or a sacred mosque. It's important to remember that major media is now indistinguishable from the weapons industry. The weapons industry is indistinguishable from big oil. Big oil is now indistinguishable from the executive branch of the US government. It's important to always remember that certain individuals within the executive branch are among the mass-murderers of 9/11. Knowing these things, and having witnessed the string of lethal lies that have issued from Cheney & Co. isn't it now reasonable for us to say to ourselves, when we hear a report of a suicide bomber, "Suicide bomber, MY ASS!". "....al-Qaida, MY ASS!"
Unfortunately, most of us still only faintly sense the amount and depth of deception that's now at play. Major media, including most of talk-radio, along with the weapons industry, the oil and gas industry, most of congress....both DC Republicans and DC Democrats....are working together towards the same goal, i.e., personal wealth and power, joint control of as much of the earth's natural and human resources as is possible. Is it not yet clear that these people have no interest in telling us the truth of what they're doing? Is it not clear that we are being played? Is it not clear that they merely tell us what they want us to believe....never mind the truth. So long as we rely upon the press to tell us the truth, and upon congress to rescue us from these evil ones, then the killing and suffering will be ongoing. For Cheney & Co. 9/11 and its resultant, immediate cash cows (the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq) were but Act One.
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John (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments)
on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 3:27:30 PM
Imagine being out of the 'green zone'. Imagine the truths you would find (if unembedded. Go to the hospitals that have no medicine, no blood, no electricity, few doctors. The hospitals with no medicine for everyday ailments, like diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, then watch them fill with men women and children, knowing that the help just isn't there, for them.
Go to that refugee camp just outside of Baghdad. See the men women children dying from lack of sanitation, medicine, food and decent shelter. Know that we have caused it.
Talk to the refugees in Jordan, Syria, and the displaced in Iraq.
We are now up to 3,397 dead troops, and we know they have the best doctors, medicine, shelter, food, (when halliburton doesn't feed them spoiled food), water, (when halliburton doesn't give them water from the river, below the raw sewerage going into the river), the best armor, (when the Dems and the 'liberal media' shames the leaders into providing it for them.
War is horrible, an unjust, illegal, preemptive, never ending war is one huge war crime.
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LYNNE KRINGLER (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments)
on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 11:03:51 PM
