TRex @ 149

Okay, about ten minutes left with Mr. Graham, everybody! (Unless he decides to stay up late…)

Me, I want to know, Patrick, what was the single most heart-freezingly, poop-yourself-terrifying moment that you’ve had in Iraq?

Iraq has a bandwidth of fear I didn’t know existed. I should say that compared to my Iraqi friends, my experiences were pretty touristic. And a lot of soldiers have gone through a wild insanity. Not to mention the guys fighting the US Army who have incredible balls. Facing down those tanks and airplanes is just…crazy. I got stuck in downtown Baghdad in a washroom with a dozen Iraqis as the US bombed the buildings around us the night of Shock and Awe. That was off the radar for me. I hitch-hiked around Fallujah when the Marines were attacking it in April, 2004. That was dumb and terrifying. I managed to have my life saved by an insurgent, some marines and a guy who still a close Iraqi friend, all in a few hours. Later, I went back into Fallujah as a friend of mine’s sick brother, with fake Iraqi ID. That was super dumb, and I did a pretty good version of a brain aneurism-affected fool during an interogation by a really unfreindly Selafist. I have to say that hanging out with these Iraqi insurgent fighters in 2003 and 2004 made me really nervous in a slow, creepy way. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be caught by the US army or betray them accidently. That kind of low level, constant fear I found really grating.

Damn intense. We turned the Iraqi peoples lives into a complete nightmare via the invasion. Crimes against Humanity, and the majority of Americans sat idly by.

How are the majority of Americans any different than those who sat by knowing (even if it was off in the distance somewhere) that millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, handicapped, gays were being brutally murdered by Hitlers regime?

Patrick Graham “I always found that reporting in Iraq is just sorting through conspiracy theories–the most outrageous ones are often true.”

My friend Peggy (who was in Iraq 4 years) has shared that many Iraqi people believe that the Golden Mosque in Samarra was blown up by american special forces.

That site has been added this year to the World Heritage List.

Patrick,

thank you for your reply at #141.

. . . FDL and other blogs have posted about Blackwater, US investigations of late into Blackwater, etc. etc. But, what you have said is the first I have ever read that even indicated a specific pro/con from the view of the Iraqi “government”. As a disclaimer, I have to say that I don’t read every thing.

Obviously, one of the things you don’t read is my blog, where a week ago I pointed out the similarity between the Blackwater and MoveOn ad controversies. ;-)

I’ll certainly be looking forward to reading more of your work – including hopefully here!

Kathleen @ 130

Patrick Graham “I always found that reporting in Iraq is just sorting through conspiracy theories–the most outrageous ones are often true.”

My friend Peggy (who was in Iraq 4 years) has shared that many Iraqi people believe that the Golden Mosque in Samarra was blown up by american special forces.

You hear that a lot. Iraqis believe that the US wants to stay in Iraq and is using the divisions to keep themselves there. Really smart plugged in people have told me this. I can’t quite get my head around the logic but I’m not Iraqi.

I’m not Iraqi either, but I have to agree that such an analysis sure looks like the reality of the situation from here, as well. That $20 trillion of untapped Iraqi oil wealth is what lies just beneath the surface of it all (and the leaders of Israel know that too). The American Congress gives not one good damn about the fate of the Iraqi people as a whole, aside and apart from a “vital” American “national security” interest of an overwhelmingly-compelling (i.e., wealth-enhancing) sort. Our Congress mostly doesn’t give a damn about the fate and the future of the American people, so you can be damn sure that the Iraqi people barely register at all with most of our legislators (certainly not enough to be invited to our Congress to testify about their future hopes and plans for, not to mention the current realities of, their sovereign nation).

Many, many thanks, Patrick, for your labors here this evening and for so willingly sharing your knowledge of the complicated Iraqi reality with the American people. Travel safely.

This panel’s chairman, James Binns, said 16 years after the war, 175,000 U.S. veterans — one in four of those who served — remain seriously ill, with the sickest among them developing neurodegenerative diseases and brain cancer.

Bush legacy and all…

Patrick, what part of Canada do you hail from? I was born in Edmonton…!!!

Toronto…though sometimes I lie and say cape Breton.