What Have You Heard About Iraq?

Cris, Vinodini, Eve, and I volunteered for the Juneau production of "What I Heard About Iraq", a play based on Eliot Weinberger's article. The show, like the article, utilizes actual direct quotes from military personnel, politicians, US soldiers, and Iraqi citizens, interspersed with music, video footage, and photographs. It was first adapted and directed by Simon Levy in Los Angeles, and a local theatre along with Veterans for Peace Chapter 100 produced it here. The performance was very intense and powerful. Prior to the government deciding to go to war, I had been involved with political activism. I attended the United for Peace and Justice-sponsored peace rally in NYC in February 2002 that spanned the width of 3 Manhattan avenues and the length of at least 30 blocks. A freelance photojournalist friend from Paris accompanied me to take pictures for the articles I was writing for my campus paper. For months, I had 24/7 news channels on, 24/7. Then, we went to war, and I stopped following the updates and news talk shows because I had felt so sickened. Last night, the memories of what I'd read and heard so voraciously before were reproduced, all at once and overwhelming.

Afterward, there was a discussion. A Vietnam vet said this generation of troops are professional soldiers, whereas he and many of his era were draftees. A current National Guard sergeant who is being redeployed soon said he was disgusted by the material, especially quotes from US soldiers. He said they sounded like fascist, Nazi stormtroopers, when this image was nothing like the people he worked with and knew. He demanded the audience recognize the troops' service to them. A therapist said she had patients who were war veterans suffering "cognitive dissonance": opposing realities between who they felt they should be/were and who they were as soldiers. And she remarked that the soldiers aren't serving her because she doesn't want them over there. The last person to speak said he's a nobody, and he bets most people in the room are nobodies, so all this discussion doesn't really matter because wars are fought for money and strategic economic reasons, and corporations are responsible for ultimately starting and ending wars so there's nothing ordinary people can do.

Like I said, I've been largely ignorant of what's going over there now, so I am curious what the dialogue is between people for/against keeping American military in Iraq? How would pulling out affect that country's stability and regeneration now that the war(s) has totally wrecked their infrastructure? Is that a problem for the UN or Iraqis themselves or who? I don't really know what my opinion is because I'm not all that informed anymore.. I would just like not to ignore accountability.

I also want to say that I have a number of friends and cousins who are in the army and were sent to/are there in that region. They are in their early 20s; I don't know the statistics but I'm sure many of the soldiers are in that age range. My friends joined the military to pay for college, to escape small towns, to get a free ride traveling the world and have exciting adventures, to become more disciplined. Of all the reasons they gave me, nobody had said, "For democratic ideals. For serving the country." These may have been part of the package, but they weren't truthfully main driving motivations. Idealistic verbage keeps being bandied around because it sounds noble and makes any critic seem evil and coldhearted, and I think part of the reason I got so disillusioned with political journalism was because of extremist rhetoric rather than down to earth, rational discussions.

Last summer, one of my friends, who joined the army so he could afford a degree but still hasn't been able to finish in 6 years b/c of training and deployment, was home from Afghanistan for a few weeks before being sent back. At a BBQ, I heard him say, "We are taught to kill them first before they kill us. It's either their life or mine so yes, I will shoot them first. I have to think that way or I'll die."

What have you heard?