The days are starting to slow down now that I’ve begun to get used to things. I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and noticed that there are two tubes draining water into the ditch outside the office trailer. The ditch is lined with reeds and I started thinking about what use we have in creating good things in this life. Many people believe in an after life. What is the use of creating a paradise in this life when you are promised paradise in the afterlife? Is it because your rewards in the after life are warranted on your deeds in this life? What about murder? – Presuppose if it is justified in the defense of your faith, your religion, than of course you have done good in killing. – What of those you killed? Will they be saved or are they doomed to… what hell? Do you believe in such a place? Or are they truly dead? Soulless… only the righteous will be rewarded. The rest will have their souls destroyed, devoured, nullified. It doesn’t make much sense to me.
If I were to burn in hell wouldn’t I have to be self-righteous in order to suffer from what I would believe to be an unjust reward in the after life? And if that reward were in fact warranted wouldn’t I be in essence the same evil that is meant to inflict eternal pain and damnation? If that were true than wouldn’t I welcome, and be welcomed by such evil? It would be pleasure. Makes me think of the movie Hellraiser.
In the tradition of ancient empires the greatest assault is genocide, as it very much is today, but accompanied by the intent to erase an entire culture, society from history. Wouldn’t that be the most damnable act upon our enemies: the soulless ones? Their entirety extinguished from our consciousness, and their own, to create the oneness of blessed self-awareness. – I just can’t help wondering to myself as all that water fills that ditch, why are they dumping that water? For what purpose are we digging ditches, filling ditches, spending money, time, and confronting the cultural straits? What truly is the reward?
I got back to my trailer a little early and went to get dinner at the DFAC close by. I usually go to the DFAC closer to the office and didn’t know the one near my trailer closed at 8pm. It was 8:30 so I decided to walk to Burger King and hope they were still open rather than wait another two and a half hours before the DFAC opened again for the late meal. I came to find out Burger King was open until midnight so I got myself a burger, fries and a coke. A couple soldiers sat at the bench where I was eating and we got into a conversation.
I haven’t had much interaction with the soldiers here. These two so far have been the only two I’ve really had an open conversation with. One was from Wysconsin and the other was from Florida but went to college at Boston College. They were both well educated. I guess that’s what allowed me to break the ice a bit with them when I asked what schools they went to. Wysconsin went to school for marketing and Florida had his masters from Iowa and was accepted there for Radiology Biology to get his PhD. They were drinking coffee while I ate my burger and sipped my coke, and were waiting for a 1am flight south to Camp Falcon.
They started talking about their experience here in Iraq. They mentioned how they’ve seen people, Iraqis found dead execution style; one guy buried up to his neck with a bullet in his forehead, people strung by the feet of legs and hacked. But they didn’t see these killings so much about sectarian violence. They described it more in terms of a mafia mentality. In there opinion Iraqi problems are about money and power right now and not strictly religious or Islamic Fundamentalist. It's like this: if you do'nt pay off Al Qaeda, like the Gambino’s, someone’s gonna get hurt because you didn’t pay for protection. Capisce?
They also talked about the electrical power situation. One guy told them, “We’re going to blow up my neighbor’s power because I don’t have power.” they said his power would be fixed by the end of the week, "just wait." But the guy wouldn’t budge. “NO. I don’t have power, why should he have power.” He’s had to do guard duty on power transformers because people throw bricks at the transformers, either as sabotage or out of spite, I don’t know.
I had a good time talking to them for an hour. I know Iraq has problems and I know the US military is trying to help but I really don’t think the social climate is conducive to making any big advances in the short term. Iraqis still live with only an hour of electricity a day. The society has collapsed under Shock and Awe and I don’t know if average Iraqis can justify there current social conditions with the removal of Saddam.
Thankfully my job here allows me to think about real issues regarding the lives of Iraqis and understanding those issues first and foremost, as best we can from the perspective of Iraqis. Suicide bombings recently become a subject we were charged with discussing. It was mentioned 90% of all suicide bombers in Iraq are foreigners; North Africans and other Arab nationals. What brings these people to be willing to blow themselves up? It isn’t simply ideology because these same people have had to become indoctrinated into this ideology. To me it’s the same inside out situation when educated people on college campuses go on a shooting rampage in the US. These are people disaffected by their societies, either by poverty in Tunisia or New Orleans, or by affluence and apathy in the case of the Columbine shootings. Every situation is unique but in order to thwart the rise in Jihadists and militants you have to address the root of the problem; the point from which it stems.
So what drives these young people to entertain such a future as martyrdom? When you don’t have an education, or do and you still don’t have a job, no money, no girlfriend, no wife, kids, may not even have parents because of war what does “this world” have left for you? There is no dream here like the frontiers of the Brooklyn Bridge or the Mississipi River. That was a European-American mythos and they don’t wear bootstraps. So you can see how the promise of an after life seven or a thousand virgins waiting for you (shit give me one!) can be so acceptable. Of course when you have nothing left where do look? God. And he’s promising you what? Sex and your lost relatives to be reunited with; happiness is their reward for martyrdom. If these young people, within and outside Iraq, are not given a future in this world they will find it very hard to reject the ideology of Jihad; it’s the economy stupid.
