Meanwhile at the front .......
From an Iraqi blogger
get rid of this ad | advertise here
G.
G. in baghdad
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Monday 6-2-2003
it was the first day of a "weapons controlling program" the Americans decided to do a sweep on one of the poor neighborhoods on the south tip of Baghdad, they rounded an area of 3500-4000 houses using a force of over than 400 men of the 82nd airborne division.
they did house to house search for weapons and guess how they were doing it ?
they divided themselves into squads of 30 men with one translator for every squad or at least the peopel i was with had one -we will speak about him later-they would go into the street start with the first house, knock at the door politely telling the peopel of the house that they r here to search for weapons asking them if they have any, and trying to explain for them that its allowed to keep only 2 pieces of arms ( a klashnikove and a pistol ),
then they would wait for a few moments while the women move to a different part of the house, the soldiers would go into the house usually two or three working there way very gently through the chickens, pots, boxes, children and bundles of blankets. they would ask the family member accompanying them to open the bedroom wardrops or any locked boxes shying away from the women and making sure they dont look at them.
to cut the story short they were professionals genteel and culturally sensitive.
so in the end of the day every one was happy, the Americans who did there job easily (apart from the hundreds of thousands kids chasing them), the Iraqis who were allowed to keep 2 pieces of arms which is more than the need of a normal household and they were treated extremely nice, it was a perfect day, or was it ?
of course it wasn't the iraqi who would smile to the America soldier standing at his door step or bending under the bed searching for grenades between dirty towels and underwear's would let the Bedouin inside him indulge immediately after that in a series of accusations of atrocities committed against his honor, religion and his poor little chickens.
why is that when something started as a perfect lesson in cultural understanding it ended in a boiling tense situation were the translator had to shout every 5 seconds the justifications of the American invasion of Iraq and how good it feels when a group of armed strangers from another part of the world who u have never met -apart from being "infidels" who never wash after going to the toilet -would come and search ur house.
i think its an old case as old as Babylon and its called communication, for some reason Allah decided to do his linguistic homework, hokus-pokus and there u go: languages everywhere. 5000 years after that it was up to a short man covered up to his ears with military gadget to save the world.
in the beginning he was doing a very good job explaining to the locals what they should and what they shouldn't do in a half complicit way using the Arabic codes of winking whispering and arm rubbing. at one point he even used the neighborhood kids as gospels spreading the word of god to the 4 directions, it started to get wrong when the people discovered that he is actually an iraqi collaborating with occupation forces "why do u allow them to come here and dishonor ure country" said one of the young men, as if the poor guy had control on anything.
so after 8 long hours.....
the Americans left, confiscating 6 antiaircraft heavy machine gun bullets form over than 40 houses.
the Iraqis were furiously talking of Americans searching our women, confiscating our protection weapons, and stealing our poor little chickens.
// posted by G @ 12:24 AM
Links
*
[email protected]
* Edit-Me
* Edit-Me
ARCHIVES
* 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003
