Iraq
The UN Refugee Agency in Amman.
A photo of the endless queue of Iraqi applicants outside the UNHCR's
headquarters in Amman, Jordan.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
confused kid
WANTED: Iraqi Refugees
It all started when my father hit me with his fist.
at about 5:30 PM today, my father came out grumbling, and then began to
reproach me for talking too loud on the phone with my friend, as always when
he was reproaching me for something, my father was cathartically relieving his
frustration and anger not over the small triffle affair we are into, but his
anger seems to stem from some deep-rooted problem between us that we seem
never have talked about and have been left there ever since I was born.
However, this time, he was too angry, I usually know that any dialogue or
reply whatsoever will not satisfy his craving, so I tend to murmur something
about not doing it again and then I just freeze. This time, after the first
few yells, his fist came POW on my head. This move on his part triggered my
own anger and frustration, an anger and frustration I have been brewing since
my own childhood, passing through difficult years of living with my
grandmother, his mother, in which I silently ate shit for the sake of not
creating problems, and now with six months of again living with him - in the
end, this was all I needed. I angrily retorted, "Why are you hitting me? I
didn't know it was too loud! I said i'm sorry!". This was something my father
was not used to, and he used it as an excuse to beat the living shit out of
me, three punches targeting the eye (didn't hit it though), my plastic chair
broke as I fell down, silent and ecstatic, the showdown has finally arrived -
I played it perfectly, I didn't reply or do anything, I just calmly endured
his fists, until my mother came and told him to stop, he stopped but his
yelling did not.
He went to the kitchen, I came back, sat on the half-broken plastic chair, and
finished my work on the computer, after half an hour, I took my passports, my
money, and hit the streets.
As soon as the door was shut, I cried.
I didn't cry for long, I got my shit together and called my friend, who knows
about the troublesome history I share with my pop. He was waiting for me near
Qassim Abu-il-Kass, a popular Iraqi restuarant at Rabia, a popular hangout for
Iraqis. We were talking about where I would spend the night, sitting calmly
somewhere down the streets, when two plainclothes men came and asked for the
IDs.
You immediately knew what it was, luckily, I had my own annual residency,
thanks to my angry father, they just looked at it and said, "okay, you're
good." Then it was my friend's turn.
My friend has a UNHCR Refugee card, he's also exceeded his own temporary
residency status by six days, the stamp of the residency is in his passport,
he was not carrying either item. This is what he did.
"(Laughs sociably) where are your IDs?"
"Here, take a look."
"(Laughs sociably) Oh yes, wait I have it, (searches through pockets and tells
a joke at the same time, before whipping out a Student ID Card of the
University."
"This is my university card of Iraq, this was SADDAM's UNIVERSITY, but now
it's called Nahrain."
"They changed the name, huh?"
"Yeah (laughs)."
"(Looks at it)...come with us....(to me) you're free to go."
"No no, let him stay. (laughs) I swear to Allah, I swear to Allah that I do
have a refugee card and I am six days over my residency but I do swear to
Allah that I have them they're in my house and if you'd just call my parents."
I was too shitstruck with my father to speak, but the alarming crisis was at
hand.
"No dude, come with us to the police station. We'll talk there."
Me: "Why does he need to go to the police station? You can just call his
parents and they'll bring the documents to you right now."
(To Me): We must have a proper investigation with him, he doesn't have any
proper identification on him and in many cases like this the man could be
wanted.
Friend: You mean my card?
Men: And your passport...
Friend: "(big smile on his face) man, this is the millionth time I swear to
you, and my Allah burn me right here on the spot if I am lying, I do have the
cards but I forgot them, I won't do it again, I'll burn them to my pants."
"No dude, come with us..."
"Please man, please (laughs)"
"What should I do with your refugee status? I am only concerned with the
rights of my country, right?"
"The refugee card means that I can stay here but I can get no work and..."
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from Baghdad and I'm originally from Mosul, SUNNI."
"Aha"
Me: "Yeah, I'm from Adhamiya too, do you know it?"
"Yeah, sure, so why'd you leave Iraq?"
Friend: "The situation is unbearable now, I escaped death squads twice, they
wanted to kill me I swear to you but they said for the sake of your
grandmother we'll let you go..." (This was bullshit of course)
"Who Did this? the Shiites?"
"What?"
"The shiites, right?"
"Yes. The Shiites, the fucking Shiites, the fucking puppets from Iran, they'd
kill anybody today."
"So why don't you guys do the same to them?"
Me: "You bet we do, any Shiite that comes in Adhamiya gets his ass wiped."
(They smile)
After a lot of interrogation, they finally agree to let us go, smiling.
We hauled our asses immediately to his place, where he picked up his ID and we
returned to hit the streets, there were checkpoints all over the Gardens
Street, we walked right through one where we greeted them and passed by, upon
seeing two policemen up ahead, we crossed the street.
I really don't know why did they let him go, my friend did an excellent
performance of good-natured humor and his talk all seemed to be fit together
perfectly in a way i could never do, but still, that's no reason, maybe it's
because of the fact that I had an annual residency which might have brightened
up their opinion of him, but I guess the fact that we are Sunnis plays out a
great deal, still, there was no way they can be sure of what he was
bullshitting.
For me, it was proof that there was a God.
And so here I am, homeless, about to start my life as a single person, posting
this to you from an Internet cafe which I am going to spend the night in, I
called my mother and assured her I am all right, and then I went out with my
friend to get dinner, the street was filled with policemen setting up
checkpoints, the contraption our Iraqi lives seem to fearfully revolve upon.
confused kid
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Zeyad
U.S.
general gives bleak assessment of Iraq
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired U.S. general and adjunct professor at the
Military Academy, recently returned from a trip to Iraq and has written a
surprisingly candid report on the situation.
I agree with most of his assessment, except
his rosy description of the current security operation. Also, like most U.S.
military officials, he is mistaking the recent infighting between tribes in
the Anbar Governorate and Al-Qaeda as a turning point in the insurgency and
support for the U.S. or the Iraqi government. But he recognises, correctly,
that the only road to success in Iraq is through reconciliation.
Key excerpts:
Iraq is ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic
levels with as many as 3000 citizens murdered per month. The population is in
despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate. A handful of
foreign fighters and a couple of thousand Al Qaeda operatives incite open
factional struggle through suicide bombings which target Shia holy places and
innocent civilians. Thousands of attacks target US Military Forces.
Three million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country to
Syria and Jordan. The technical and educated elites are going into self
imposed exile, huge brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. The
Maliki government has little credibility among the Shia populations from which
it emerged. It is despised by the Sunni as a Persian surrogate. It is believed
untrustworthy and incompetent by the Kurds.
There is no function of government that operates effectively across the
nation;not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not
labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province
in the country in which the government has dominance. The government cannot
spend its own money effectively. ($7.1 billion sits in New York banks.) No
Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO,
nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor
Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi without heavily armed protection.
The police force is feared as a Shia militia in uniform which is responsible
for thousands of extra-judicial killings. There is no effective nation-wide
court system. There are in general almost no acceptable Iraqi penal
institutions. The
population is terrorized by rampant criminal gangs involved in kidnapping,
extortion, robbery, rape, massive stealing of public property - such as
electrical lines, oil production material, government transportation, etc.
(Saddam released
80,000 criminal prisoners.)
The Iraqi Army is too small, very badly equipped (inadequate light armor, junk
Soviet small arms, no artillery, no helicopters to speak of, currently no
actual or planned ground attack aircraft of significance, no significant air
transport assets (only three C-130’s), no national military logistics system,
no national military medical system, etc. The Iraqi Army is also unduly
dominated by the Shia, and in many battalions lacks discipline. There is no
legal authority to punish Iraqi soldiers or police who desert their comrades.
(The desertion/AWOL numbers frequently leave Iraqi Army battalions at 50%
strength or less.)
In total, enemy insurgents or armed sectarian militias (SCIRI, JAM, Pesh Merga,
AQI, 1920’s Brigade, et. al.) probably exceed 100,000 armed fighters. These
non-government armed bands are in some ways more capable of independent
operations than the regularly constituted ISF. They do not depend
fundamentally on foreign support for their operations. Most of their money,
explosives, and leadership are generated inside Iraq. The majority of the
Iraqi population (Sunni and Shia) support armed attacks on American forces.
Although we have arrested 120,000 insurgents (hold 27,000) and killed some
huge number of enemy combatants (perhaps 20,000), the armed insurgents,
militias, and Al Qaeda in Iraq without fail apparently re-generate both
leadership cadres and foot soldiers. Their sophistication, numbers, and
lethality go up -not down- as they incur these staggering battle losses.
Zeyad
