The Green Zone -- No Longer "The Bubble"

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

The Green Zone -- No Longer "The Bubble"

The Pentagon under the B-C (Bush-Cheney) administration, warned Hans Blick and Mohamed ElBaradei to remove all the UN inspectors because the US Airforce and Navy were about to bomb the smithereens out of Iraq. In the “shock and awe” planning, the military was careful to avoid two locations on the target charts: the Ministry of Oil and Saddam’s Republican Palace. The Ministry of Oil had all the records of existing oil wells and locations of likely oil deposits identified by Iraqi geologists. After all, why were we invading Iraq? Saddam’s Palace — with the subsequent addition of a swimming pool, restaurants, and a couple of oases where liquor could flow freely — was slated for the US Embassy and surrounding Green Zone.

And so, it came to be. After US tanks and other armor rolled through and occupied Iraq, a four square mile Green Zone was set up as an American city within Baghdad. Housed there were thousands of soldiers, contractors, administrators, and an aberrant diplomat or two. As the occupation continued, solid walls replaced the barbed wire, and the seeming safety begat the Lock & Load Bar, the CIA Bar, the grand Baghdad Country Club Restaurant, and a libertine lifestyle. Life in the Green Zone went from monotony to ever better parties. The insurgents added to the excitement with periodic rocket attacks, but the rockets’ red glare did not deter serious revelers who attended the rooftop parties at the Olive House, complete with wet T-shirt competitions. The excesses of the Green Zone, then known as the “The Bubble,” became too much of an embarrassment for the new Secretary of Defense, William Gates. A few of the beyond-the-pale watering holes were closed down in 2007, right after his appointment.

In the early months of 2009, the Obama administration reacted to the American public’s ennui with the war in Iraq by promising to withdraw American forces. The Iraqis heard the pledge — they have 5,000 year old memories — and reminded the new guys in Washington of their promise. So, Obama proceeded to withdraw the troops (out of the cities to their nearby bases) and to hand over control of the Green Zone to the Iraqi police. Now, even official US vehicles must wear Iraqi license plates, or else. The Blackwater and Triple Canopy guards and Embassy staff cannot rely on their badges — they are no longer exempt from questioning and inspection. The ignominy. A female diplomat with a low cut neckline and a blue embassy badge was suddenly looked on as a potential terrorist rather than as someone to liven a cocktail party. A veteran US diplomat complained “The Green Zone used to be fun.” Embassy staffers are left to just dream about the good old days at the now shuttered Baghdad Country Club.

The seriousness of the Iraqis in running the diplomatic zone of their own country with no fooling around must be contagious. The deputy chief of the US Embassy recently instituted stringent guidelines for his staff. It is said that violations will be punished by a smack on the knuckles with a thick document. And, what of the Blackwater contractors? Who will tell them to behave? Maybe Moqtada al Sadr and the Mahdi Army.

Gadfly welcomes the Iraqi government to the discipline of statecraft and wishes them well. They would be wise, though, not to discard every last vestige of the American character that seems to alternate between trigger quickly and party animal. A sense of humor, even a touch of parody in the right place, can break stalemates in negotiations to produce cease fires and then, permanent peace. For training, Gadfly recommends a couple of viewings of the Marx Brothers film, “Duck Soup.” Also, you would do well to recruit a few of Iraq’s best comics to join the diplomatic staff. Such Special Envoys would surely bring a spirit of fun to the table, maybe a little creativity, too. You can use the Iraqi sense of history to entice them, reminding them of the holy city of Nippur where trade agreements and peace treaties were signed in the fourth millennium BCE. Nippur, with this 5,000 year old tradition, could become a world center for peace. Geneva has been a little lax of late.

Conflicts Conflict

Salud, Salut, Gesund—As Long As You’re Healthy

by Mort Malkin

Conflicts Conflict

Our modern patriots would have our children go to church every Sunday, display the Ten Commandments (in stone) at our county courthouses, and pledge allegiance to the American flag at all public events. Our kids are taught that murder is immoral and illegal. [Don’t ask about the Prophet Isaiah or beating swords into plowshares.]

Promptly at age 18, they are encouraged to enlist in the Armed Forces. They are assured they won’t be assigned to the front lines [but not told that the front lines are everywhere] and that they will make the world safe for democracy [as if democracy and capitalism were the same thing]. They enlist. At basic training they learn a new morality and legality. They are taught that their M16 rifle is their best friend. At target practice, people-shaped targets are used. Just before shooting they yell “Kill, kill!” The Army is well aware of the research showing that most US soldiers in WW II were reluctant to shoot their guns in battle. Is the refusal to kill another human a part of our genome? We’ll just have to make the enemy sub-human. As the Vietnamese were called “gooks,” we label insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan “ragheads.” Perhaps teaching our soldiers Arabic and Pashto would create empathy for an enemy. Let’s not.

In Baghdad, soldiers learn to shoot first and ask questions later, if ever. They learn to drive fast, often within a year or two of a driver’s education course in high school. Survival tells them to “floor it” when approaching an overpass. 80  mph on streets and rural roads is a usual driving speed for US troops in the Middle East. Their deployment in that war zone is full of risk, and a high level of adrenalin is one of the few dependable things they experience. After a stop loss order or two, 24/7 danger seems “normal.”

When they eventually are returned to civilian life in the US – the safe, peaceful US – it seems abnormal. They are also expected to return to the morality and legalities of before they left on their foreign adventures. They no longer have the authority that goes with carrying a rifle. People don’t mosey around town with an M16. Even driving a car is subject to speed limits, only 65 mph on freeways and much less in town. In Iraq they were fighting to secure the American way of life, which they now discover is so dull. Desk jobs are especially boring. They have few options for excitement. One former soldier drives his car at 90 mph on the highway, fantasizing an escape from an ambush. Another picks fights in bars. Many of our soldiers, having survived in the Middle East, return home with an “immortality belief.” They figure “If I didn’t get killed over there, nothing is going to happen to me here.” A dangerous attitude.” The stats for suicide, divorce, and fatal auto crashes are way above those for civilians of similar ages who have not served in war. Alcohol and drug abuse may be documented by only a few hundred thousand anecdotal reports, but you better believe the real number is several times as much. As to anxiety, depression, nightmares, day fantasies, and other signs & symptoms of PTSD, the incidence is beyond statistics (BS).

Treating those who have suffered the mental and physical slings and arrows of war is a given. Looking to the fundamentals, prevention is far more promising. Let us teach the arts of diplomacy, the skills of statecraft, the techniques of negotiation – the ways of peace. We need federal funding for an Academy of Peace to balance the Military Academies of West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs. We should have a Department of Peace as a counterweight to the Department of Defense (War). Edmund Burke had it right when he said, “A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.”