Occupation, R.I.P.

An Angolan is running toward me with a concerned expression on his face: “Sir, you cannot take photos! Please erase everything!”

It was my first dust storm ever: I was shocked to see the usual khaki wane several shades down, and everything suddenly became grayish-white as if a truckload of chlorine was dumped into a small swimming pool. The visibility got miserable and you could look straight into the sun. Of course I wanted to commemorate it! I forgot that one of the rules disallowed to take pictures on the compound, and was harassed by one of our Angolan guards to erase everything that showed any security infrastructure. Which was pretty much everything, because our compound IS security. Maybe I would post these photos on one of the social networking sites, and Osama bin Laden could accidentally stumble upon it and gain enough intelligence to derail our benevolent reconstruction effort. As a result, all that remained of the dust storm was the inoffensive sun photo and a generic picture of our garden.

I never took another compound photo again thinking that one day I would succeed at taking pictures elsewhere in Baghdad. Little did I know that the democratically elected, U.S. funded and supported, Bush/Cheney-fostered Iraqi government, the first such government in the region, with much trust, confidence and love placed upon it by the Hegemon – in short, OUR Iraqi government – would set us up with such cold-blooded cynicism.

One day, a rule was dropped on us: we cannot take any more pictures in the International Zone (IZ- formerly known as the Green Zone), and quite possibly anywhere in Baghdad and maybe even in the entire Mesopotamia. Turns out it was reported that two Americans were taking pictures of the famed Saddam’s hands holding swords monument – quite possibly the most famous Baghdad site and a standard photo opportunity for the great majority of foreigners here. The two unfortunates were approached by the Iraqi police and asked to proceed to the police station where they were requested to erase everything they photographed that day. The order was, the police explained, that now that the Iraqis are firmly in charge of their own security and with the U.S. Military sitting on useless behemoth bases outside of urban centers foreigners could not photograph anything anywhere in the International Zone without a press badge. To add insult to injury, the Iraqi police told the Americans on their way out that the order could begin applying to the entire country of Iraq. The two Americans promptly delivered this message to the Embassy, and, through the official channels, everyone was required to take note and to act accordingly.

This incident and our security’s response to it reminded me why I was writing this blog in the first place. But this was just the beginning.

Another alarming message came a couple of days ago: now we can’t under any circumstances travel to the IZ where a store, our post office, the Embassy and many important organizations we deal with are located. The vehicles we use for all movements, large armored SUVs, are not officially registered anywhere in Iraq and do not have license plates. Now the Iraqi police asked us, as well as any other private contractors who all use similar cars, to carry license plates to be able to go anywhere in the IZ. Theoretically, we might not be able to drive without registration anywhere in Baghdad at all as the police can stop us at any checkpoint.

This is truly an uncomfortable predicament because the documents required to register our armored cars simply do not exist, at least not in our possession. The thing is these vehicles, each costing a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars, came as part of the contract with the U.S. government and they already came to Iraq without proper or any documentation. I don’t want to jump to conclusion why this is the case leaving it to the imagination and research skills of whoever’s reading this blog. And I’m sure the issue will be resolved relatively quickly between the U.S. and Iraqi governments, well over our heads. We really don’t want to get caught in the fray: we will simply await the verdict.

All this, however, leads me to think about the big picture. What is going on here? Why have these incidents along with the recent stand-off between U.S. military and Iraqi security forces as well as the failure of the Iraqi Parliament to extend the mandate of the British army begun to occur so quickly after the U.S. military left Iraqi urban centers for large military bases. I can only conclude that they are squeezing us out.

When in March 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq, the then obscure outside of the Shi’a world Ayatollah Sistani based in the holiest Shi’a city of Najaf issued a fatwa urging the Iraqi Shi’a not to resist the U.S. forces in their push to Baghdad. The U.S. media quickly embraced the Shi’a naming them the ally and sang praises to the wisdom of their leaders pointing to them as to the evidence that all Iraqis craved for under Saddam’s yoke was democracy. Of course, democracy as we understood it – free market (read – hopefully willing to sweet-deal U.S. oil companies) and based on free and fair expression of Iraqis’ popular will (read – thanking the liberators by establishing a pro-U.S. government).

And so it generally seemed. The bad guys were nearly always Sunnis: the al-Qaeda and former Ba’athist types. The most notable exception was the young Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who used his rag-tag Mahdi army to attack Americans, but even he appeared to have understood the wisdom of joining the political process by 2005.

What was really happening under the watchful eye of Uncle Sam, however, was the creation of the first in history Arab Shi’a state. For ages the Shi’a were the underdog, the outsider of Islam. Sistani, largely respected throughout the Shi’a world, understood the importance of the U.S. invasion and decided not to resist and use his influence to establish the Shi’a not merely as a major force in mainstream Iraqi politics but as the only influential one. The Sunnis are badly outnumbered in Iraqi government now, as well as in the Iraqi police and the military who are now mostly Shi’a. The Shi’a state has been established and is ready to defend itself: the ‘shiafication’ of Iraq is nearly complete.

Of course, the enemy – the Sunni fundamentalists who will surely try to get back on top in this never-ending struggle within Islam – is still lurking out there waiting to show once again its ugly nature: car bombs, assassinations of Shi’a religious and political leaders, random sectarian violence. They are most likely waiting for the U.S. military (and no less their TV crews) to leave the country to unleash their revenge.

But the Shi’a state is also waiting for the moment to splinter the skulls of their enemies with the full hammer force of their U.S.-trained and funded police, security and military. Or maybe they expect to marginalize the Sunnis without violence. Still, they also need for the U.S. to leave. The Iraqi government is sending signals: now you gave us everything we needed. Thank you, keep sending us money but, really, you’ve overstayed your welcome. This is not your struggle any longer. In fact, it never has been.

They are telling us: Occupation, rest in piss!

(The picture is from http://www.polit.ru/bbs/2006/05/25/elkin_april06.html)

21 Rays of Sun

As the plane zooms past the mountains of Suleymaniyah, one of my memories from the Life Long Gone springs to mind. I’m on the bus surrounded by strange people, heaps of luggage, screaming children and the bus attendants spraying lemon-scented disinfectant into everyone’s welcoming hands. I am in Turkey and the bus is approaching Iranian border. This is Kurdistan, the land without a name, the country of Turkish military checkpoints, troop carriers and helicopters – as well as friendly hospitable people who genuinely treat you as their newly found best friend.

Today, my life is different, and the country I’m in is different, but, once again, I’m in Kurdistan. Stepping off the plane In Erbil, suddenly I can breathe again – it had been raining here, it smells of wet asphalt, and for the first time in two months my lungs love the complete lack of dust in the air. In a strange way, it feels similar to the Kurd land on the other side of Iraqi border: same facial features, same Persian accent in people’s English and the “thank you” that sounds similar to Russian – “Spas!”

And yet the otherness of this place is strikingly obvious. What makes people here different from their brothers in Turkey as well as from their fellow countrymen in Baghdad is how at ease they are here. The uniformed members of the Kurdish Peshmerga military having a pensive afternoon smoke, the sellers day-dreaming in their shops, the waiters in restaurants lazily gazing over sleepy guests – it just feels so … normal. Almost immediately I forget about security and even get irritated when I’m reminded that I do have to obey some rules: “Hey, you’re still in Iraq!”

What makes it so different is the fact that Iraqi Kurdistan is practically independent. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, both the Shiite majority in the country’s south and east and the Iraqi Kurds in the north have been relentless in their push for more political control, which for the Kurds meant the realization of their dream to have their own country. Officially, they are an autonomous region under control of Baghdad but it is hard to believe the façade when the Iraq’s President Talabani and the President of Kurdistan Barzani (both are Kurds) smile together in fron of the cameras and swear an undying friendship between the Kurdish and Arabic peoples. The fact that Kurdistan maintains its own military, as well as foreign relations with the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Israel (!!!) and Russia speaks tons. So does the flag of the Region – the only flag hoisted on the Erbil International Airport’s building.

The Kurds trace their genealogy back to the times of the pre-Islamic Sun-worshipping monotheistic religions of Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, and the Kurdish own religion of Yazdanism. Although some of these religions popular among Persian-speaking peoples ran currently or preceded the Roman Empire, there are still signs of the good ole Sun-worshipping times one can observe in today’s Kurdistan. For example, unlike the Gregorian or the traditional lunar Islamic calendars, what is used by the Kurds is a sun calendar with months designated according to the Zodiac: the same calendar is used in Afghanistan and in Iran, the other two Islamic Persian-speaking countries. Also, the flag, flown by various Kurdish Independence movements as well as the short-lived post-WWI Kurdish republics in Turkey and Iran, includes the Sun centerpiece that shines its 21 rays on the Kurds in Iraq. Of course, the re-worked temporary flag of Iraq is also displayed on the government buildings in Kurdistan, but the general feeling is that it is now the Kurds who want to have a say in the politics in Baghdad, and by no means the other way around.

In Iraq, Kurdistan Region is the best place to be. It’s the happening place. Due to large deposits of oil found in the region, and of course because of its relative lack of security problems, foreign businessmen flock to Kurdistan through Erbil International Airport. I was surprised to find that the airport is currently taking flights from such European capitals as Vienna, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. In fact, it is Erbil rather than Baghdad that hosts most business events focusing on Iraq, both domestic and international. Erbil is also becoming a regional transportation hub. Development here is so rapid that local residents complain about how expensive the housing has become, which is always the dark underbelly of economic recovery. Several neighborhoods are forests of cranes, and the quality of roads could be the envy of any European city.

Of course, the region has many problems. One of the issues that political parties will focus on in the elections next week is corruption: the two clans run by Presidents Talabani and Barzani have been battling over economic control of Kurdistan’s immense natural resources and other profitable businesses. And surely enough, the de-facto political independence of Iraqi Kurdistan has created a potentially powerful time bomb in the region with Turkey, Iran and Syria carefully monitoring the situation.

To me, however, Kurdistan will forever equal freedom. It’s deeply personal, and I cannot really understand why their struggle resonates with me. But when I think of Kurdistan, it will always be the memories of its freshness, the taste of its watermelons that made my dinners in East Turkey, the unique look of its crumpled mountains as if roughed up by a gigantic plough, the transparency of its air unpolluted by dust and overpopulation, and the relative freedom from rules, regulations and other official abuse.

The bus is creeping toward Mount Ararat. I’m thinking of the future and new adventures that life has in store for me. With this anticipation, I doze off.

Farewell to Arms

In the Universe, there are those who run it and those who think they run it. I belong to the second category, although I have no illusions about who’s the real daddy. We, who are jumping outside of our skins to make the Mesopotamia safe for democracy, are the clients – contractors, NGO workers, government workers – and we have the money, time and disposable people’s lives to spend on this activity. But we also ideally want to stay safe while doing so. To achieve this, we hire security firms staffed with friendly battle-hardened men. But their and our Big Bosses in Washington and London are the ones who come up with the Rules: they are the Real Masters of the Universe. The regular security personnel and the softer people like me are separated by job descriptions, but our bosses are in cahoots with each other. And they are sadistic and sick, I am almost certain about that.

As a part of the social experiment they run here, the real Masters make it extremely difficult to engage in most of the activities that are routine and normal in other places. It is impossible to go somewhere that’s not ‘mission critical’, that is, it has to have something to do with delivering the Mesopotamia into a happy rosy place where birds chirp like mad and deer eat from your hand. In addition, every ‘mission’ or, if it involves driving, ‘movement’ is deeply covered in security rules and regulations that don’t always make sense. For instance, if such mission critical movement involves going to the Baghdad Airport, then you have to always leave at 7 in the morning, even if your plane is scheduled to take off12 hours later, of course for ‘security reasons’. For 12 straight hours you are stuck in the airport, bored out your mind and your back is sore from sitting in a limited number of positions on these nice metal chairs. Oh, why have I never taken yoga?!? I can almost hear the Masters laugh ominously at every such unfortunate’s predicament.

Sometimes, you can go shopping to the PX. The best PX is a department store located near the airport at one of the big U.S. military bases; there you can find different goodies that one’s used to consuming in the U.S. To get to the PX, you have to be extremely lucky by justifying why you have run out of toothpaste and why can’t a local buy you the shower gel. To make the long story short, to get there you have to gather two ‘critical masses’: 1. Enough people who want to go to the PX, and 2. Enough personal items to buy. The PX trip involves the same routine of waking up at an ungodly hour when the store is still closed, putting on your body armor, driving slowly through the unwelcoming dusty streets of Baghdad, and waiting… waiting…. waiting……… at checkpoints. This would normally discourage me from going at all, which I think is the real purpose behind all these rules: ‘do you little shit wanna brush your teeth? Fuck you, here is a rule and a regulation on top of it!’ Do I really want my KIT KATs that bad?

But I have a friend who works on that base. She is a very nice girl who, on top of being a girl – a rarity here, is also a fellow Russian speaker. Which means we both have incorrectly constructed minds that, for some odd reason, find rules and regulations particularly nonsensical and therefore obnoxious. Such we are, irreverent rule non-abiding church-disregarding Slavs.

We plot our meeting as if it were a terrorist attack or (more accurately) an escape from prison. We conspire using electronic media (Skype). We lead other people astray by making them believe that the real purpose behind our PX meeting is a burning desire to buy a shaving cream (in my case) or a box of chocolates (in hers). Finally, we both get critical masses together and we move. My movement was scheduled for 3 hours only and with a rare strike of luck was to start at 10 AM, not 7.

You would not believe how fast time can fly. As we were getting close to the base, our convoy was re-routed to a different checkpoint, not the one that we normally use. After waiting for God knows how long at that other check point, we came in the direct vicinity of our final destination.

Normally, the road to the PX runs close to one of Saddam’s multiple palaces: the road winds through pastoral scenery dotted with artificial lakes, willow trees and gaudy Saddamist architecture that is a cross between Islamic, Babylonian and 18th century European chatteaus. Only peacefully grazing cows and blonde German babes with pigtails are missing from the idyllic landscape.

Not so the road from that other checkpoint. This is a functional road, never intended to be a part of the palace and is used heavily by the U.S. Military. The desolate dusty paralyzed landscape is punctuated by barbwire and signs advertising that excessive speed will lead to the use of deadly force. And there they were: mighty army vehicles parked in unbelievable numbers on both sides of the road under the burning Mesopotamian sun. For a moment, I felt I was in a zoo – such was a variety of shapes, sizes and equipment that adorned these monuments to human ingenuity. Humvees, MRAPs, Bradleys, Strykers and others pointed their grinning faces at me, and shot at the skies above with all kinds of crazy shaped and positioned antennae. Their sides contained extra sheets of armor, and on top of each animal was positioned a small tower with a long machine gun. The amount of extra shit added to a once lean body of each machine was unbelievable. What happened to the genuine design that went into building machines for earlier wars and made these killers look almost beautiful? The modern creatures looked like exotic insects proudly displaying their armor, with the exception that these were all khaki-colored and a lot deadlier.

Although, their extraterrestrial exterior was designed to look menacing to the bad freedom-haters, to me they spoke one word only: fear. The body armor, the antennae that would help a stranded unit call in for support through fast satellite connection, the small windows that made visibility worse, computers and electronic sensors – they all meant that the human beings inside were actually afraid of the turban-wearing insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and RPGs. And the politicians who sent them to this war were also afraid of military losses because that would make them accountable for their decisions. Sure, in all wars the sides try to create as much difficulty as possible for the enemy to inflict harm. However, this made the modern warfare with all its drones and robots a particularly dehumanized business. I believe that this leads one side to rely on brute force more readily than on negotiation. Previously large mutual losses exhausted the fighting potential on both sides, and eventually led them to the negotiating table. Alternatively, the possibility of suffering large losses caused country leaders to think twice before even starting a war. This war is non-negotiable. The only serious limiting factor here is tax dollars.

To conclude the story: my friend was late for our meeting due to her company’s security procedures, and we only ended up spending 45 minutes in rapid-fire clock-watching conversation.

We will try to do it again. The desire for human contact is stronger than the security protocol and the dust-colored monsters of deadly force.

(The image is from www.warwheels.com as the regulation is that I cannot take pictures of anything at the base.)