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| Iraq |
| Michael Totten goes on patrol in Baghdad |
| 2007-07-24 |
| . . . The battalion I’m embedded with here in Baghdad hasn’t suffered a single casualty – not even one soldier wounded – since they arrived in the Red Zone in January. The surge in this part of the city could not possibly be going better than it already is. Most of Graya’at’s insurgents and terrorists who haven’t yet fled are either captured, dormant, or dead. . . . We slowly rolled into the market area. Smiling children ran up to and alongside the convoy and excitedly waved hello. It felt like I was riding with a liberating army. Graya’at’s streets are quiet and safe. It doesn’t look or feel like war zone at all. American soldiers just a few miles away are still engaged in almost daily firefights with insurgents and terrorists, but this part of the city has been cleared by the surge. Before the surge started the neighborhood was much more dangerous than it is now. “We were on base at Camp Taji [north of the city] and commuting to work,” Major Jazdyk told me earlier. “The problem with that was that the only space we dominated was inside our Humvees. So we moved into the neighborhoods and live there now with the locals. We know them and they know us.” Lieutenant Lawrence Pitts from Fayetteville, North Carolina, elaborated. “We patrol the streets of this neighborhood 24/7,” he said. “We knock on doors, ask people what they need help with. We really do what we can to help them out. We let them know that we’re here to work with them to make their city safe in the hopes that they’ll give us the intel we need on the bad guys. And it worked.” . . . We dismounted our Humvees and set up a vehicle checkpoint on the far side of the market area. Curfew was going into effect. Anyone trying to drive into the area would be searched. Dozens of Iraqi civilians milled about on the streets. “Salam Aleikum,” said the soldiers and I as we walked past. “Aleikum as Salam,” said each in return. They really did seem happy to see us. Children ran up to me. “Mister, mister, mister!” they said and pantomimed the snapping of photos. I lifted my camera to my face and they nodded excitedly. . . . Everyone was friendly. No one shot at us or even looked at us funny. Infrastructure problems, not security, were the biggest concerns at the moment. I felt like I was in Iraqi Kurdistan – where the war is already over – not in Baghdad. It was an edgy “Kurdistan,” though. Every now and then someone drove down the street in a vehicle. If any military-aged males (MAMs as the Army guys call them) were in the car, the soldiers stopped it and made everybody get out. The vehicle and the men were then searched. Everyone who was searched took it in stride. Some of the Iraqi men smirked slightly, as if the whole thing were a minor joke and a non-threatening routine annoyance that they had been through before. The procedure looked and felt more like airport security in the United States than, say, the more severe Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza. “What are you guys doing out after curfew?” said Sergeant Lizanne. “I’m sorry, sorry,” said a young Iraqi man in a striped blue and tan t-shirt. “There is no sorry,” said Sergeant Lizanne. “I don’t give a shit. The curfew is at the same time every night. I don’t want to have to start arresting you.” “Why are you stopping these guys,” I said to Lieutenant Wolf, “when there are so many other people milling around on the streets?” “Because they’re MAMs who are driving,” he said. “We’re going easy on everyone else. We’ve already oppressed these people enough. They have a night culture in the summer, so if they aren’t military aged males driving cars we leave them alone. We were very heavy-handed in 2003. Now we’re trying to move forward together. At least 90 percent of them are normal fun-loving people.” “Do they ever get pissed off when you search them?” I said. “Not very often,” he said. “They understand we’re trying to protect them.” “This is not what I expected in Baghdad,” I said. “Most of what we’re doing doesn’t get reported in the media,” he said. “We’re not fighting a war here anymore, not in this area. We’ve moved way beyond that stage. We built a soccer field for the kids, bought all kinds of equipment, bought them school books and even chalk. Soon we’re installing 1,500 solar street lamps so they have light at night and can take some of the load off the power grid. The media only covers the gruesome stuff. We go to the sheiks and say hey man, what kind of projects do you want in this area? They give us a list and we submit the paperwork. When the projects get approved, we give them the money and help them buy stuff.” Not everything they do is humanitarian work, unless you consider counter-terrorism humanitarian work. In my view, you should. Few Westerners think of personal security as a human right, but if you show up in Baghdad I’ll bet you will. Personal security may, in fact, be the most important human right. Without it the others mean little. People aren’t free if they have to hide in their homes from death squads and car bombs. . . . Photos and much more at the link. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 Interesting...I somehow navigated yesterday to a web site of someone who really has a problem with Totten. As I recall it was some guy who claimed to be a biology-scientist from Minnesota. He is a proud, liberal atheist...or atheist liberal, whatever. I dunno. I scrolled down, and the guy must have spent a couple of hours putting that post together. It was pretty funny. I guess he is on some sort of crusade. I lost interest after about 4 minutes of reading. Lots of I thinks and he said-she said, etc., etc., ad nauseum. I forgot the site and who he was. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-07-24 18:43 |