Your Tax Dollars at Work in Iraq

In almost any third world country conflict, militias have been known to set up roadblocks and illicit checkpoints which are about controlling the population through fear and extorting cash and goods as a sort of illegitimate transport tax, from trucks carrying merchandise. This system operated in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, both during the Soviet occupation and more recently after the American invasion and, of course, in Iraq. It is frightfully efficient and provides a steady and healthy income to any group controlling a specific district.

In Iraq, it is the insurgency that profits from this practice and does so in numbers befitting the phenomenal financial black hole that Iraq has become. US contractors, including the military, use Iraqi contractors to transport their goods. The idea is that Iraqi contractors are not only less likely to be attacked but, from the US Military’s point of view, are also more dispensable, or at least their workers are, if they are killed. Iraqi contractors also know, that to get their goods say, from Baghdad to a job site in Al Anbar province, they will have to pay a substantial amount to the insurgency to let them pass. One contractor quotes a job, which he would normally bid at $16,000 for filling bags of gravel and transporting them to Ramadi would be invoiced at $120,000 of which as much as $100,000 was paid out to the insurgency.

The Seattle Times quotes one contractor as saying: "Insurgents control the roads - Americans don't control the roads — and everything from Syria and Jordan goes through there."

In light of the fact that current US or Iraqi government run projects total over $353 million, it’s easy to imagine about $10 million of that landing in the hands of the insurgency over the next year or so. Some of that money will be used by the insurgency to purchase weapons, some of it to bribe Syrian border guards to look the other way. But the following also has to be considered: in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, Pentagon officials claim that the USA spends one million dollars for every dollar spent by the insurgency, which boggles the mind somewhat.

Here’s the scenario in a nutshell. In order for Iraq to succeed, the United States is attempting to defeat an insurgency whilst it rebuilds the country’s infrastructure. In rebuilding the infrastructure, American contractors are forced to shell out millions of dollars to the insurgency that the US military is trying to fight. The insurgency repeatedly destroys the infrastructure, a soft target, thus guaranteeing themselves a steady revenue flow. That’s a business plan if ever I saw one.

When Another America Went to War

There was a time when the United States perceived its position in the world not as the be all and end all of civilization and the entity that determines how other countries should live out their cultures. There was a humbleness and a degree of tolerance borne out of the knowledge of being a ‘new’ country, which made Americans treat people abroad with a certain level of respect and which resulted in the world accepting, liking and even loving America and what it stood for.

Increasingly, the attitude of the US military and its soldiers is that they do not owe anyone anything, let alone respect. This started in Vietnam and has increased precipitously with every year that the United States has become stronger militarily. More recently, through the collapse of the Soviet Union maybe and the ensuing perception at being the only super-power left, we witness a growing degradation of the local population by members of the United States forces. It is part of the machinery which is causing a growing distaste for America and its ways especially in those countries but also elsewhere.

This is compounded by the fact that also since the Vietnam war, the disrespect by American forces for the lives of others, whilst being so sentimentally attached to the lives of their own troops gives the distinct impression that Americans believe themselves to be intrinsically more valuable as human beings. Of note recently were comments made by a senior British Commander in Afghanistan’s Helmland, in which he requested that America withdraw its Special Forces due to the unarguably high number of civilian casualties they were causing which in turn was making it impossible to win over the civilian population to the ISAF cause of fighting the Taliban.

One father, who reported losing six members of his family killed in a bombing raid by US Forces, in which another five members of his family were wounded including his wife who lost an arm, confirmed this point as reported by Carlotta Gall of the New York Times:

He said that he opposed the Taliban, but that after the bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the insurgents. Whether people would support the foreign troops “depends on the behavior of ISAF,” Mohammadullah said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “If they treat the civilians well, they will win.”

The most important line is the last one: “If they treat civilians well, they will win.” But this runs counter to the ways that soldiers, specifically American soldiers have been treating civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. A recent article quoted Marines as saying that they would generally not report the mistreatment of civilians by their fellow marines. Moreover, references to headdress attire and derogatory names like “haji” are counterproductive.

There was a time when things were different. US troops were in Iraq during the Second World War and at that time, there was a booklet entitled “A Short Guide to Iraq” which outlined how to behave towards Iraqis, included pointers as to how to respect the Islamic traditions and also a small guide on how to speak Arabic. A new version of this book has finally been published, perhaps four years too late with an introduction by Lt. Col. John Nagl, in which he wishes he had had such a booklet when he was first stationed in Iraq in 2003:

“As the month of fasting called Ramadan approached in November 2003, I would have appreciated knowing that ‘Moslem tempers are very short during this month as yours would be under similar circumstances’—and perhaps I would have been better prepared for the surge of violence that marked this celebration in our sector.”

The Newsweek article by Malcolm Jones ends with this remarkable insight:

The chief value of “Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II” is that it reminds us that there was a time, not so long ago, when America expected its troops abroad to be not only brave and resourceful fighters but also upstanding citizens who were expected to be generous, kind and respectful of other people and other cultures—model Americans, in other words. No wonder they called it “the good war.”