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.)