CPTnet
October 6, 2004

IRAQ REFLECTION: First impressions of Baghdad

 by Tom Fox

PREFACE: You should take these first impressions of Baghdad with several
grains of salt. The first being that I have only been in the city for seven
days and have never been to the Near East before. The next grain is that I
have only been a CPTer for fifty days, having just taken the training in
Chicago this past summer. The final grain is that I have no previous
background in peacemaking, having spent the last ten years working for a
natural foods company and before that having spent the remainder of my adult
life as a musician.

 ***

"Do not lie and do not do what you hate" (Gospel of Thomas v. 6). This
teaching attributed to Jesus, as is the case with many of his teachings,
seems so obvious. The longer I consider it, the greater its subtle truth
becomes.

After stripping away all the rationales for the U.S invasion of Iraq, I
think I see that the current U.S. administration felt compelled to invade
from a basis of hate. I can envision them saying, "Saddam is evil. We hate
evil. Therefore we need to rid the world of this evil man and his cronies."
I can see that actions taken by Saddam could lead them to feel hatred
towards him. He and his associates built palaces and enclaves where they
lived in luxury while across the Tigris River was a slum where over a
million residents of Baghdad lived in poverty and squalor. He maintained
control of the country by devoting huge amounts of material resources to his
military and security forces, a decision that allowed the infrastructure of
the city to deteriorate. And most hateful of all was his use of
imprisonment and torture to keep the population of Baghdad living in a state
of fear.

My impression of Baghdad in my first seven days is that most of the American
and Iraqi interim government officials have sequestered themselves in
palaces and enclaves, which has served to disconnect them from the majority
of the population. These officials are devoting a significant amount of
material resources to maintain both military and contracted security
organizations while the already marginal infrastructure continues to
deteriorate. And in the continuing cycle of hatred-creating-more hatred,
elements of Iraqi society are using terrorist tactics to destabilize the
American forces and the interim government. Their actions and the response
by the American forces keep the population in a state of fear and
uncertainty.

    An insurgent mortar round aimed at an American target might fall into a
residential area. If a person is unlucky enough to live in an area where
insurgents are suspected of living, he or she might find his or her own life
and property are at risk when an Apache helicopter launches its vast arsenal
of lethal weaponry.

 Do not do what you hate, what you hate, what you hate, what you hate.